Moore: What doesn't work is throwing good money after bad. If your physical plant is flawed, spending money to work around it will ultimately catch up with you. In terms of what works, it's in the master planning. You keep things flexible enough to grow and adapt in the future so that you're never really stuck in a place that you can't come back from.

GlobeSt.com: What trends do you see in repositioning retail as some big-box users exit the market?

Moore: You're seeing smaller-format uses coming into centers where there have been some big-box folks. Mixed use has evolved into its next generation—it's more accepted even in suburban environments, close-in environments. They involve as many product types as you can bring in: hotel, office—it's not just apartments and retail anymore. We're definitely seeing food driving a lot of today's repositioning in retail, both for retailers and landlords alike. the more dynamic an environment you can provide, the better. Restaurants and grocery stores are showing up in all types of centers.

GlobeSt.com: What else should our readers know about Irvine Co.'s retail-space strategy?

Moore: We're going off-ranch. We have 93,000 acres here in the Irvine Co. ranch we've been on for 150 years, and the retail division has moved off-ranch and is actively developing in Silicon Valley. A 125,000-square-foot project is coming on line in the fall with a 50,000-square-foot Whole Foods in Santa Clara, and we're bringing several retail projects into apartment communities.

IRVINE, CA—Mixed-use development has become more accepted even in suburban environments, featuring product types that include hotel, office, apartments, retail and more, Irvine Co.'s president of retail properties Dave Moore tells GlobeSt.com. The company recently announced a major $150-million reinvestment in Irvine Spectrum Center—celebrating its 20^th anniversary—that will feature more than 20 new stores, new landscaping, outdoor seating and shade areas, state-of-the-art amenities and circulation and parking-garage improvements. The reinvestment will also entail more than 20 carefully curated stores located within two new buildings on the current site of Macy's, which announced recently the closure of 40 stores nationwide, including the one at Irvine Spectrum Center.

We spoke exclusively with Moore about his firm's approach to repositioning and reinventing vacant retail sites, the strategies that work and don't work and trends in repositioning big-box space.

GlobeSt.com: What is your firm's approach to repositioning and reinventing obsolete or vacant retail sites?

Moore: The thing with Irvine Co. is we never let them get to obsolete or dilapidated. We maintain our own portfolio, and we're unique in that. We have a perpetual-hold mentality, so we're always reinvesting and keeping an eye out to keep those centers fresh. That said, Fashion Island is 50 years old, and Irvine Spectrum Center is 20 years old. In those centers, we're keeping up with the evolution of what is relevant. In the beginning, Irvine Spectrum Center was imagined as an entertainment destination, and over time, retail was added and expanded upon. As the retail has grown, the emphasis of becoming more of a full-service destination center has been more apparent. We're getting back the Macy's box, which allows us to reinvent that space, bringing in more retailers that are more dynamic. We envision having up to 20 retailers ranging from 1,500 square feet to 40,000 square feet along that reimagined quadrant of the Spectrum Center, which allows us to bring in more names—people we were looking for, rather than a department store struggling to find its identity.

GlobeSt.com: What strategies work, and which don't work, when considering a repositioning?

Moore: What doesn't work is throwing good money after bad. If your physical plant is flawed, spending money to work around it will ultimately catch up with you. In terms of what works, it's in the master planning. You keep things flexible enough to grow and adapt in the future so that you're never really stuck in a place that you can't come back from.

GlobeSt.com: What trends do you see in repositioning retail as some big-box users exit the market?

Moore: You're seeing smaller-format uses coming into centers where there have been some big-box folks. Mixed use has evolved into its next generation—it's more accepted even in suburban environments, close-in environments. They involve as many product types as you can bring in: hotel, office—it's not just apartments and retail anymore. We're definitely seeing food driving a lot of today's repositioning in retail, both for retailers and landlords alike. the more dynamic an environment you can provide, the better. Restaurants and grocery stores are showing up in all types of centers.

GlobeSt.com: What else should our readers know about Irvine Co.'s retail-space strategy?

Moore: We're going off-ranch. We have 93,000 acres here in the Irvine Co. ranch we've been on for 150 years, and the retail division has moved off-ranch and is actively developing in Silicon Valley. A 125,000-square-foot project is coming on line in the fall with a 50,000-square-foot Whole Foods in Santa Clara, and we're bringing several retail projects into apartment communities.