These Landlords Help With The Heavy Lifting
July 20, 2010
Elaine Misonzhnik
As the retail real estate industry transforms in the wake of the recession, mall and shopping center owners are building relationships with the kinds of tenants they might have ignored five or ten years ago.
For instance, restaurant operators only came to be accepted as mall tenants in early 2000s because their parking needs, long hours of operations and heavy cleaning requirements were previously seen as a burden. Gradually, however, retail landlords began doing business with large national chains like the Cheesecake Factory and P.F. Chang’s China Bistro and enjoyed great success in the process.
Today, many landlords are taking the next step by targeting smaller, independent restaurateurs, many of which have no experience operating in a shopping center environment. There are several reasons for this. One is that restaurants have bounced back from the recession more quickly than retail operators and are currently among the best drivers of traffic for retail properties, notes Michael P. Glimcher, chairman of the board with Glimcher Realty Trust, a Columbus, Ohio-based regional mall REIT with a 20-million-square-foot portfolio.
Another reason is that independent restaurants bring with them a sense of uniqueness—an element that traditional malls and shopping centers are often criticized for lacking, adds Matthew Harding, president and chief operating officer of Levin Management Corp., a Plainfield, N.J.-based property manager with 12.5 million square feet of retail GLA in its portfolio.