GlobeSt.com: Is this a national trend?

Chichester: There are certainly always exceptions, but the fun, the uniqueness and the challenge of retail is that it's very fluid, very dynamic. But it's based on demographics, and those demographics really have to be modeled and understood. The baby boom generation has 75 million [people]. Around the age of 52, which is the back-end of the baby boom generation, you move from consumption to savings. Add to that the recession, [when] a lot of people's net worth was severely challenged or wiped out. The group of people that has been driving consumption for the last decade has moved to savings or is looking desperately to recover some of their net worth. The X Generation's buying behaviors are different; their attitudes and culture are different. There also 25 million less of them than the baby boom generation: it's estimated that there are about 49 million. The quantity of the consumer has changed, because your highest consumption is in your 40s. The next group, the Millennials, is the biggest generation in the history of our country. It will exceed the Baby Boom generation, but their average age is 26. They're not into their consumption behaviors yet – they haven't started their families yet, bought the house, the car or started to move up. Demographically, [retail is] challenged just in that sense.

GlobeSt.com: If you look at it culturally, are they Hispanic, Caucasian, African-American?

Chichester: Those buying trends and needs are totally different. Retail gets challenged because it's constantly trying to meet that ever-changing population. With that, grocery stores have changed their dynamics. The sheer demand on a national level of leasing volume for traditional grocery stores is down 60% since 2007. At the same time, the leasing volume for upscale grocery stores is up 70%. And you have the advent of new competition, i.e. Walmart, Walgreens, the advent of the Family Dollars and the Dollar Trees; they're all creating new levels of competition that take those customers away from traditional stores.

GlobeSt.com: How does this affect leasing the rest of a center?

Chichester: Some superstores can be on a stand-alone basis if they are comprehensive enough in their service. But retail still has an environment that makes it unique. You're either looking for value, for ease or for experience. Your property needs to evaluate what its real purpose is. People want to condense their shopping experience if it's a value or ease need. [In] new developments today vs. new developments 15 or 20 years ago – the anchor tenant is more pertinent and you have few small shop spaces. The challenged properties have too many shop spaces, and those get redesigned and repurposed, and they usually tend to reduce the shop space.

GlobeSt.com: Are the institutions looking for safety?

Chichester: Absolutely. In general, an institution is looking for risk-adjusted yields and more safety. They have a much longer time horizon for their investment where they can see continued appreciation due to the quality of the real estate – fundamentally, its location – and the quality of the asset, what's built on it. The institution is not the value-add or opportunistic investor.

GlobeSt.com: And the high-net-worth individual?

Chichester: That is looking for predictable sustainable yields, and also is an indication of how people feel about the overall economy. Real estate is a commodity, and commodities tend to do well in terms of stagnation or appreciation, or inflation. … They see real estate as a safe way to produce predictable cash flow for a long period of time.

GlobeSt.com: How do you add value in retail today?

Chichester: It's really looking at the opportunities that real estate offers its consumers or its community. An awful lot of that is retenanting or repositioning the asset. So much of the value of real estate today, as important as it is to make the right acquisition at the right price, is the operating expertise. That is trumping everything.

GlobeSt.com: How does Faris Lee work into this?

Chichester: We're financial advisers. We do brokerage work. We're counseling investors, owners and operators on how to maximize their value and manage their risk. We don't actually come in as the operator. We do an awful lot of underwriting at the asset level as to what the operational opportunities and challenges are, how to create some risk-adjusted understanding around that, and then as we position an asset into the market, we position it from an operational standpoint as well as a financial [one].

GlobeSt.com: How will the transaction market be this year?

Chichester: The investment environment, the interest in real estate, the amount of capital looking to position itself into real estate is substantial. And there is far more money than there is product. This year will be an extremely active year. The market now feels comfortable it can price risk, and once the market can price risk, it can trade. The real discipline going forward is making the smart investment choices and not creating any bubbles of activity.