Collings: We pride ourselves on trying to maintain excellent relationships with our tenants. The real change was the recession forced all of us landlords, across the country, to have a much better understanding of the retailers’ business and understand more carefully and clearly how much they can afford to pay in relation to what their sales production is. Although we all should have known that before the recession, it forced all of us, industry wide, to be more knowledgeable on that side of it. We look at transactions today, more so now than ever, looking at the affordability index against the potential sales opportunity.

GlobeSt.com: Did you explore alternative uses in your centers other than retail?

Collings: We’ve kind of always done that, given the diverse nature of our portfolio. We’ve had deals with a couple of the universities for some of their medical uses. In the last 18 months we’ve done deals with three Montessori facilities. We’ve always been on that footpath anyway. Has there been an increase in studying alternative uses in the last couple years? Absolutely. But we always tried to do that anyway. It’s a part of providing a more well-rounded mix of services to your customers.

GlobeSt.com: What is the difference in neighborhood center leasing versus your higher-profile assets?

Collings: We break it into two basic categories. On one side of our portfolio we have 36 centers that are grocery and drug-anchored centers. They are all within the boundaries of the Irvine Ranch. The beauty of that is that we get to control within the Ranch the amount of retail space that is divided to the consumers. It allows us to never over retail the neighborhoods.

On a separate side, we’ve got three what we call regional centers, one of which is Fashion Island, our luxury fashion; Irvine Spectrum, our more entertainment-dining-fashion center; and then The Marketplace, which is our value-driven center that’s got virtually every big-box tenant out there. It’s 1.6 million square feet, and we’re 97% leased. They are all in Irvine Ranch, and we look at them as providing different uses to our customers because our customers can, and do, shop all three.

GlobeSt.com: Are there any plans on adding to your non-necessity portfolio?

Collings: Not at the moment. We’re doing some expansion in a couple of the centers. We’re in the midst of studying that right now. We’re getting ready to start construction on 20,000 square feet of additional space on Fashion Island, and we’re looking at adding some additional square footage at Irvine Spectrum, but we don’t have anything on the books right now in terms of adding any new centers.

GlobeSt.com: Are there any retailers or any categories out there that you are excited about right now?

Collings: Food has been terrific, both at a full sit-down restaurant level as well as the quick serve. There is a lot of opportunity in that category. We’re still anxious to see some of the fast fashion players come to the Orange County market, such as Topshop and Uniqlo. They’re just now getting ready to open in L.A. and haven’t hit Orange County yet. On the electronic side, that has always been a strong category. Apple has been fantastic for all of us.

We’re doing a couple of interesting things at Irvine Spectrum. We’re doubling the size of the Improv Comedy Club because it’s been so successful. We’ve also had a great run of restaurant openings there over the last 12 months. We’re taking two specific areas on the Ranch, Newport Center, where Fashion Island is, and Irvine Spectrum. Both of those areas are significantly dominated by either office or multifamily residential. We’re building more office, and we’re building about 4,000 more apartment units.

GlobeSt.com: What is you leasing objective at the ICSC Western Division conference this year?

Collings: We have a site that sits across the freeway from the Irvine Spectrum that we’ve named Los Olivos. It is a 115,000-square-foot grocery-drug center that sits across the street from about 4,000 apartment units that are under construction. We are going to the conference with the goal of bringing that project out and getting everyone familiar with it. It’s a great site. It backs up to the 405 freeway, and you have about 250,000 cars that pass that site every 24 hours. It’s one of the last retail sites we have on the Ranch that is adjacent to the freeway. That’s one of our big pushes for the conference.