Program Speakers See NE Retail in Flux

BOSTON-The bloom is clearly off the retail rose, but speakers at an industry event here did their best to plant a seed of optimism for the New England landscape. Moderator Geoff Millerd of Cushman & Wakefield joined keynote speaker Suzanne Mulvee of PPR and broker Ben Starr in forecasting a mixed 2008 where top-rated tenants will benefit from the demise of weaker concepts and retailers dunned by the lingering subprime crisis. And while the debt debacle continues to foment uncertainty, Millerd said the investment sales team at his firm is following up a record 2007 of $780 million in volume with fresh opportunities and eager buyers, albeit no longer the highly leveraged crowd that created a frenzy last year.

“Our phones are ringing again,” said Millerd, recounting how the market cratered along with the remaining real estate sales sector once the debt crisis took hold in mid-summer. The biggest challenge, the C&W senior director relayed to the audience at Boston’s Westin Waterfront Hotel, is in getting obdurate owners to accept adjusted pricing required from more expensive financing and disconcerting economic storm clouds, such as a record decline in consumer confidence during the past five months.

“The market is starved for quality assets,” said Millerd, whose underlying theme to prospective sellers attending the C&W-sponsored program was “Don’t’ Miss the Bus in 2008.” While acceding that the peak has passed. Millerd stressed that buyers are still ready to pay close to historic figures for malls and shopping centers in New England. One reason, Mulvee explained, is that the region has not been overrun by new construction as seen in other parts of the country such as Florida, Las Vegas and Southern California, ironically an area battered by employment losses from the mortgage sector morass. “Huge amounts of supply are being added,” Mulvee relayed in her overview of the US economy and its impact on the retail arena.