GlobeSt.com: Is there a pent-up demand by retailers because there is no new development taking place?

Soskin: I would agree with that 100%. That's what's driving our leasing at Azalea and redevelopments. For at least 12 to 18 months, the national junior-box tenants of 10,000 square feet or greater have all expressed interest in finding these opportunities and are looking for ways to grow. The interesting thing is in the last six to nine months the sub 10,000-square-foot national tenants have expressed a similar interest.

GlobeSt.com: Do you think that pent-up demand will lessen the blow of the Office Depot-OfficeMax merger, or will that be a struggle for landlords to fill?

Soskin: It will be like three or four years ago when we started losing some tenants. That ended up being a very selective problem. The properties with good real estate were always in demand. They might have ended up taking a little IRR, but not significantly. Properties that were not good real estate; they will still be vacant today. The same thing is true with the OfficeMax-Office Depot merger. We have one in our portfolio in the Los Angeles trade area, and even though they haven't told us what they are going to do with it yet, but with initial marketing, there is a lot of interest. We'll probably have to spend some money and split it up, but if it went vacant, it would be filled relatively quickly because it's in a dense, urban market.

GlobeSt.com: A lot of the traditionally suburban big-box tenants are playing up their push into urban markets. Are you seeing the results of that?

Soskin: Absolutely. A lot of the development at Primestor has been the traditional, Hispanic core markets. At Azalea, we have several first-time national tenants coming into an area that is so heavily Hispanic in nature. For Vitamin Shoppe, it's the first one for them in this trade area. Additionally, it is the same with cosmetics and beauty store Ulta. The tenants have been able to get over the hump about trade areas because they're realizing the density is important. We just signed a lease with Famous Footwear. They're a great national retailer but historically they are not willing to go into a non-traditional suburban market. Now they're going into our project in Walnut Park hopefully by the end of the year.

GlobeSt.com: So are retailers taking the Hispanic consumer more seriously than they did in the past?

Soskin: We've been seeing it for a while because we live it. But mainstream retailers are now not just sticking their toe in the water but taking a strategic approach into the Hispanic trade areas. It's incredible. It's moving very quickly now. They saw the success of the first few people that went in. Look at the raw numbers. There are 50-plus million Hispanics in the United States. The US Hispanic GDP is second in the world only to Mexico. The other thing that we have been talking about for a while is the breakdown of the Hispanic customer. Last year the majority of the growth of the Hispanic consumer was native born, not immigrant. So we have the dominance of second or third generations of very typical aspirational immigrant families.

GlobeSt.com: What are your expectations for RECon this week?

Soskin: Our dance card is very full. We are in the unique position in the sense that our new development is pretty well leased. We'll have a heavy focus on a project we're working on – Baldwin Hills Crenshaw, which is a mall. And we continue to see growing interest in that project, and our focus in Las Vegas will be on that asset. We expect it to be very busy.