On the investment side, sales activity has picked up significantly for core properties. Cap rates remain low for these properties. However, sales of non-core properties remain challenging. Lenders have also returned to the market; however, underwriting standards are strict.

GlobeSt.com: What type of retail deals are you working on these days?

Glick: We are working on just about every type of transaction you can imagine with respect to retail development and leasing. It is a nice incremental uptick in activity from the first six months of 2009, when the retail markets were “stuck” like much of the US economy. We are involved in selling parcels to very large retailers, leases with tenants like Marshalls, Ross, Dick's, Trader Joe's, Fresh & Easy and Chase, and the disposition and acquisition of operating shopping centers

GlobeSt.com: What are you seeing your client developers and owners focus on? Expanding their centers at all?

Glick: Not really. They spend more of their time on tenant retention. This involves much more time on property management—keeping their centers looking good and attempting to lease vacant shop space, often by attracting shop tenants from less desirable properties at comparable rental rates.

GlobeSt.com: Some experts we have recently spoken with have mentioned that development isn't coming back in retail. What are your thoughts on that?

Glick: In developing communities where retail follows housing, ground up development may still be five years or more away. The new housing market is still reeling. We do not see this getting significantly better for many years, especially with the number of foreclosures in California. However, new development is still quite viable where housing densities already exist.

GlobeSt.com: Is the retail recession ending, or do we have a ways to go? Are we entering a period of normalcy?

Glick: The new normal is nothing we have seen for a few decades. However, the economy is slowly improving—it is just going to be a very slow incremental improvement. Unfortunately, the recovery is so fragile that it can be significantly impacted by numerous factors such as oil prices, war and European debt. Needless to say, the runaway debt in the US and California have to be reigned in as well for the economy to continue to expand.

GlobeSt.com: What are your tips on selling pads and parcels of shopping centers in today's market?

Glick: There are numerous buyers in the marketplace looking for returns. With bond, Treasury and CD rates at anemic levels, a buyer that can purchase a pad leased to a very good credit tenant like McDonald's in a well leased shopping center will do so at a very low cap rate. However, buying or selling a pad in an operating shopping center creates many issues that need to be addressed in well crafted documents. As an example, issues relating to easements, maintenance, use and exclusives need to be properly addressed. The sale of a single tenant property that is not part of a shopping center is a much easier transaction to document.