How many times have you walked or driven past a grocery-anchored strip center and been surprised? Never. It’s the same old, same old … year in and year out. But you may not have realized that this half-century old phenomenon is perhaps the most consistently profitable model in today’s ravaged shopping center sector. Grocery Anchors You may have also missed some significant news in the grocery-anchored (G-A) sector this spring, which slipped beneath the radar of most mainstream media (except for the prosaic supermarket and finance industry …
Washington Prime: From Mall Poster Child to Bankruptcy
In some ways, this week’s Chapter XI filing by shopping center REIT Washington Prime Group seemed preordained. However, it’s instructional to recall that at the time of its formation in 2014, WPG was seen as a potential rising star adopting a sound strategy: burnishing a portfolio of mid-level malls into attractive and engaging properties, all at a manageable level of investment. Washington Prime Portfolio With a fleet of roughly 100 shopping centers nationwide, Washington Prime was initially set up to absorb a roster of B and C malls being …
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Malls Are Transforming into…Corporate Centers?
It's been just over five years since the International Council of Shopping Centers published "Envision 2020" - a landmark study (full disclosure: I directed the study) demonstrating the need for malls to completely reinvent themselves in an Amazon-dominated retail world. The consensus among industry leaders around the globe at that critical moment in time was clear: transform or disappear. Poster Children Certainly, over the past half-decade or so, there have been some impressive mall transformations - properties where entertainment, leisure …
JC Penney: Another Rescue Effort
Alas...JCPenney was rescued from Chapter 11 by two of its largest landlords this week. Simon Property Group and Brookfield Asset Management now have the responsibility of managing Penney's unwieldy fleet of 690 stores (following the imminent closure of another 146)...many at least 20 years past their prime and continuing to fade away in the public consciousness. A Fool's Folly? The question must be asked: Why would two of the world's largest and most respected shopping center owner/developers commit $692 million, and an unspecified amount of …
American Dream: Tale of Two Malls
It's been 16 years since the American Dream mega-mall began development in the New Jersey badlands of East Rutherford, hulking over the New Jersey Turnpike like a metal and concrete pterodactyl. During that time, owners have come and gone, the State of New Jersey has cowered under the weight of over $1 billion in incentives and bonds . . . and the shopping center industry has fundamentally and forever changed. Now, Triple Five Group, the current developer and owner of the famed Mall of America near Minneapolis, has promised a firm opening …
Manhattan’s Retail Transformation
It is apparent to any pedestrian strolling through midtown Manhattan that New York's retail real estate industry is in a state of crisis. Just count the number of long-empty storefronts along premium thoroughfares like Fifth and Madison Avenues on the East Side and Bleecker Street and environs in the West Village, and you will be overcome by a feeling of hands-up despair. So much consumer spending power . . . and yet so many spirit-killing vacancies. What's Going on Here? Clearly, a transformation of Manhattan street retail is underway. But …
Who Says “B” Malls Don’t Have a Future?
In the current highly challenging shopping center environment, it sometimes seems that any property below "A-Grade" is regarded as destined for failure. The current mantra, voiced repeatedly by financial media, is that A-malls will be the long-term survivors of the retail apocalypse, while B- and C-level malls will be washed away by the competing forces of online shopping and millennial indifference. I beg to differ. First, let's understand that the generally held assumptions about mall quality levels are most commonly linked to their …
The Future of Shopping Centers Is Happening…in Edina?
Edina, Minn. (pop. 51,000) is an unlikely spot to host the rebirth of the shopping center industry. This quiet and very upscale suburb is known mostly as an affluent bedroom community of Minneapolis, as well as for the garage charger gadgets residents use to jump-start their cars in the frigid Minnesota winters. But Edina could very likely be the launch point for the next generation of shopping centers. Southdale Center, a Simon Properties center in Edina which opened in 1956 and bills itself as the "oldest, fully enclosed, …
The Future of Shopping Centers Is Happening…in Edina?Read More