Retailers to Open 2,250 US Stores This Year, Says Report 1

By: Jeff Dervech - March 19, 2019 Retailers to Open 2,250 US Stores This Year, Says Report

Retail is strong and the brands of which are adopting and embracing change will continue to thrive. Retail is evolving every day and has changed significantly over the last 30 years. Don’t expect it to stop now! Shopping centers will morph and evolve faster over the next 5 to 10 years than ever before. The way consumers shop has changed the retail landscape and with in turn has as changed the physical infrastructure and footprint...

Late-Cycle Real Estate Investing Has Done a 180 2

By: Jeff Dervech - March 14, 2019 Late-Cycle Real Estate Investing Has Done a 180

The current real estate cycle is considered to be in the later innings of the baseball game with some calling it a post 7th inning stretch and others describing it as long in the tooth, more closely resembling a game in extra innings. One thing is for certain, the back end to this real estate cycle is much different than the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis. Overall leverage and lending practices are much more...

Dollar Tree to Renovate 1,000-plus Family Dollar Stores; Close Up to 390 Others 3

By: Jeff Dervech - March 11, 2019 Dollar Tree to Renovate 1,000-plus Family Dollar Stores; Close Up to 390 Others

Dollar Stores continue to grow and evolve! Dollar Tree, which has over 7,000+ stores and owns Family Dollar with over 8,000+ stores, announced a commitment to renovating 1,000 Family Dollar units in the coming year. The plan calls for the company to rebrand 200 Family Dollar stores to the Dollar Tree banner and completely close approx. 390 Family Dollar units across the country. The company announced its 4th quarter results from March 6th, 2019 with...

What Will Happen to All of the Vacant Sears/Kmart Boxes? 4

By: Jeff Dervech - March 7, 2019 What Will Happen to All of the Vacant Sears/Kmart Boxes?

What will happen to the hundreds of shuttered Kmart and Sears locations around the country? The retail locations formally occupied by these tenants will be repurposed or redeveloped to meet current market demands, with the exact use or concept to be dictated by the individual trade areas of which these locations lay. Most of these former Sears and Kmart boxes are old and functionally obsolete, ranging between 100,000 – 200,000 SF and in many instances...

New Grocery Store Business Coming from Amazon? 5

By: Jeff Dervech - March 4, 2019 New Grocery Store Business Coming from Amazon?

Amazon interested to open a new grocery store model separate from its Whole Foods Concept. The intent was that Amazon wanted to enter the grocery business by way of its Whole Foods acquisition, however their desire appears to exceed purely as a reformat and transformation of just that grocery brand alone. Their recent efforts as reported by the Wall Street Journal includes the plans of opening a grocery store in Los Angeles this year, with...

Strip Malls: The Least Glamorous Segment In Retail Is Among The Sector’s Strongest Performers 6

By: Jeff Dervech - March 2, 2019 Strip Malls: The Least Glamorous Segment In Retail Is Among The Sector’s Strongest Performers

E-Commerce Resistant! Strip Centers continue to be a desirable asset class for investors to own. The shopping center tenant mix is usually composed of more internet resistant and service-based uses, concepts from restaurant to medical to daily service needs. The locations of these properties traditionally are in the middle of neighborhoods and can conveniently serve the local population. Strip Centers with good signage, parking, and accessibility will continue to be in high demand. Why is...

NRF study says consumers shop at discount retailers regardless of age or income 7

By: Jeff Dervech - February 27, 2019 NRF study says consumers shop at discount retailers regardless of age or income

Everyone likes a bargain regardless of age or income! Majority of U.S. consumers are driven by value and have remained price-conscious shoppers throughout time, regularly visiting discount retailers to seek out a bargain. Regardless of age, looking for the best price remains to be a habit in consumers of almost every demographic group. The art of a steal, is what drives this desire regardless if the consumer is capable of affording to shop elsewhere. The...

CRE Investors can still profit from Retail Real Estate – If they stick with Service-Oriented Tenants 8

By: Jeff Dervech - February 19, 2019 CRE Investors can still profit from Retail Real Estate – If they stick with Service-Oriented Tenants

Real estate will continue to be a safe harbor for investors in our time of extreme uncertainty as we move into the future. As investors seek out new investments to deploy capital, they should seek out retail investment properties that include service-oriented uses, experimental retail, and internet resistant concepts as they are more likely to provide healthy, risk adjusted returns. With so many sources of potential market volatility threatening investors, U.S. real estate remains a...

Thriving “Self-Care” Sector Fuels Demand for Strip Center Space 9

By: Jeff Dervech - February 11, 2019 Thriving “Self-Care” Sector Fuels Demand for Strip Center Space

Fitness and Self Care Concepts continue to warrant strong demand for space in strip centers. The “self-care” sector which includes wellness, health, fitness, and beauty is a growing business as more and more people are investing their discretionary income into themselves. Majority of these self-care tenants are offering memberships instead of a pay as you go model which bodes well for shopping center owners, adjacent tenants, and retail foot traffic at these properties as it...

Energize aging shopping centers by splitting them in two, architect advises 10

By: Jeff Dervech - February 7, 2019 Energize aging shopping centers by splitting them in two, architect advises

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...

Feds hashing out details of Opportunity Zones program 11

By: Jeff Dervech - February 4, 2019 Feds hashing out details of Opportunity Zones program

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...

Revamped Whole Foods ready to grow again, exec says 12

By: Jeff Dervech - January 23, 2019 Revamped Whole Foods ready to grow again, exec says

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 adds “Lifestyle Bowls” for paleo, keto, Whole30 dieters 13

By: Jeff Dervech - January 14, 2019 Chipotle adds “Lifestyle Bowls” for paleo, keto, Whole30 dieters

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...

Landlords look to the parking lot for new revenue 14

By: Jeff Dervech - January 9, 2019 Landlords look to the parking lot for new revenue

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,...

Economists React to December Jobs Report on Twitter 15

By: Jeff Dervech - January 7, 2019 Economists React to December Jobs Report on Twitter

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...

The 10 Questions Real Estate Has to Answer in 2019 16

By: Jeff Dervech - January 4, 2019 The 10 Questions Real Estate Has to Answer in 2019

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...

Retail Landlords Turn to Mom and Pop Shops to Fill Credit Tenant Void 17

By: Jeff Dervech - December 31, 2018 Retail Landlords Turn to Mom and Pop Shops to Fill Credit Tenant Void

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...

Five Retailers That Are Investing Billions in Their Stores 18

By: Jeff Dervech - December 16, 2018 Five Retailers That Are Investing Billions in Their Stores

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....

Store resurfaces parking lot with plastic bags 19

By: Jeff Dervech - September 7, 2018 Store resurfaces parking lot with plastic bags

Tesco, the British owned grocer and general merchandise retailer, based out of the United Kingdom has banned plastic bags in replacement of alternatives that are better for the environment. In addition, they have incorporated a new way to utilize recycled plastic shopping bags into the binding material used to resurface parking lots. This new method saves plastic from going to the landfill and adds it to the asphalt mix which in turn creates a stronger,...

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