ECOMMERCE

Renovate and Freshen Up your Strip Center! Why? Because in many instances you can add tremendous value by renovating or redeveloping your plaza to attract better quality higher paying retail tenants. Creating new energy by way of renovation directly affects the property’s bottom line and positions retail assets to be setup for long-term success by attracting tenants and keeping up the occupancy rate. Deighton Babis with BDG Architects coined a term “In Cap” and created...

What are opportunity zones and why is everyone crazing about them? Opportunity Zones is a new tax incentive program casted by the government that is forecasted to activate billions of dollars in development and investment in 8,700 federally designated low-income census tracts across the US. The basic concept behind this initiative is to incentive private investors to place capital in these low-income areas in return for deferred and reduced taxes on capital gains. The government...

Whole Foods Market which operates 479 locations throughout its chain was purchased by Amazon in June 2017 for $13.7 billion. Since the acquisition, the chain has been somewhat muted on aggressive store expansion and store pipeline as Amazon worked to fine tune the engine and gear up for the grocery track meet. Whole Foods was known to be behind the curve on technology and the development of a loyalty program as well as declining same...

Chipotle Mexican Grill which operates 2,250 locations across the United States is a strong tenant for many strip center and shopping center owners and continues to innovate and stay ahead of the curve. This fast-causal restaurant has implemented a new category to meet customer demands designed to follow trendy eating plans. This new “Lifestyle Bowl” includes a Paleo Salad Bowl, a Keto Salad Bowl, a Whole30 Salad Bowl and a Double Protein Bowl which contains...

As shopping centers evolve, so are parking requirements! The traditional parking ratio of 5 spaces per 1,000 sf is in many cases outdated and not does apply to every situation or commercial development. Municipalities are changing or considering changing the way that they view this requirement by understanding that traditional consumer transportation now includes multiple alternatives such as car sharing services and in the future autonomous vehicles. The existing code for parking requirements, at times,...

The economy continues its longest streak ever by adding 312,000 jobs in December. This is a record 99 months of monthly job growth beginning in October 2010. Year over Year wage growth grew 3.2% with unemployment at 3.9%. December numbers show that are economy continues to be in a very healthy state and is not in line with the perception of the recent equity markets. This is a great thing for our economy kicking off...

2019 is finally here! As we embark on this new year, investors will look to a world that consists of a strengthen economy with consist job growth in a tail ended real estate cycle. From technology, rising interest rates, economic conditions, potential political risks, omnichannel retailing, change of how brick and mortar space is used by retailers, chase for yield, debt market’s competition and global capital market flow, this year is sure to be an...

As shopping centers continue to evolve, landlord’s will look to lease space at their centers to strong local and regional operating tenants. In order to meet the demands of consumers, landlords will look to input tenants that offer an “experiential, social and engaging experience”. Local and Regional Mom and Pop tenants have been increasing in appeal to shopping center landlord’s as they continue to prove by their successes that they know their customer, understand the...

Retailers continue to pour money back into their brick and mortar locations. Why? Physical stores remain the heartbeat to retail brands and it is important for them to keep their core assets polished. The push to make investment into their physical units is an effort to keep their stores fresh, incorporate new store formats and implement newly designed layouts in creating the store of the future to effectively execute on instore pickup and delivery operations....