What is it about Cushman & Wakefield's global retail platform that sets it apart from the competition?

Gene Spiegelman: Cushman & Wakefield delivers a wide-ranging suite of services to retail investors and occupiers. While this remains a notion by some and a goal of others, we've successfully organized our retail industry sector around the delivery of top-tier services that have historically benefited other sectors. With a future-forward approach, we're deploying our superlative talent to meet the omnichannel and global real estate needs of the industry. With an eye toward technology, e-commerce, global supply chain logistics and the quickening pace of demographic and social change, we're helping clients transform the way the world works, shops and lives.

Additionally, collaboration and information sharing is the key in servicing clients across the globe. The secret sauce is communication. Our professionals engage in consistent dialogue across time zones and geography to stay abreast of the changing pace of the industry.

How has the merger with DTZ impacted the firm from a retail services perspective?

Spiegelman: As a result of the merger, we've harnessed a very deep pool of superior retail professionals around the globe whose collective experience, talent and intellect have made an indelible mark upon our industry and landscape, and will continue to do so. By the numbers, Cushman & Wakefield will lead the way as No. 1 in retail leasing, portfolio solutions, valuation and industrial/global supply chain logistics.

What's the hot retail story in your respective cities? What's driving innovation in your markets?

Steve Soutendijk: In New York, food and beverage continue to drive the bulk of retail transactions. As New Yorkers' palates have developed, and as food “culture” in general has become more important, the city craves options and quality. There is a broad spectrum of restaurants and fast-casual users who continue to make New York the best city for food in the world.

Michael O'Neill: The tremendous redevelopment of Lower Manhattan is extraordinary and certainly notable today with the successful opening of Brookfield Place and with Westfield's World Trade Center set to open in a matter of months. There's been a philosophical shift in Manhattan, where more companies and people seek to work and live Downtown. This has benefited developed retail markets south of 23rd Street such as the Flatiron District, the Meatpacking District and SoHo, but no area has added more quality retail than the Financial District in recent years.

Danny Jacobson: The transformation going on in the Fulton Market District on Chicago's West Side—the city's former Meatpacking District—is the hot story now. While the restaurant scene had thrived along Randolph Street, we've witnessed an incredible change over the past few years fueled by the opening of Soho House and Google's new Chicago headquarters. As the meatpacking facilities move out of the area, developers are rushing in to add retail, office, hotels and residential. Fulton Market is quickly becoming one of Chicago's hottest districts for emerging and established retailers alike.

Greg Masin: Growing urbanism is a key driver in Miami. We're waiting on delivery of huge, potentially game-changing projects like Brickell City Centre, a $1-billion mixed-use development in the heart of the Financial District. Innovation is being driven by traffic implosion, so neighborhoods are becoming more self-contained. In the future, you'll live next to where you work because traffic makes commuting an absolute nightmare. We're also seeing a widening chasm between bid and ask on rents as landlords are emboldened by their perception of the market.

Matthew Fainchtein and Carter Magnin: The hot story for retail in Los Angeles comes down to choices. Whereas historically there were only a handful of districts, there are now over a dozen retail submarkets and lifestyle centers for our tenants to consider within the Greater L.A. area. This highly competitive landscape is what's driving innovation. With more options, companies—whether on the tenant or landlord side—have to put out a better product, which ultimately benefits the consumer.

How will shopping centers fare over the next year as e-commerce dominates the conversation?

O'Neill: The top-tier malls and shopping centers in the better markets will continue to evolve as they will opportunistically seek to create a unique and more experiential shopping environment. The objective is to develop an offering for the shopper that promotes frequency and is distinctly different than what one could expect on the web. A major component of effectively developing a strategy that resonates with today's consumer involves entertainment and a well-executed food and beverage offering. These types of tenants act in a similar fashion to the traditional department store anchors as they provide a modern approach to driving consistent traffic, which benefits the in-line retailers occupying the balance of the mall or shopping center.

Masin: Both will remain relevant. If you're on South Beach and see an outfit you want, but you're running late for your flight and go home and buy it online at 2 a.m., who got that sale? Tenants are figuring out how to leverage omnichannel and know that pure sales performance of a physical store is no longer the only metric to consider.

Fainchtein and Magnin: Shopping centers are going through a major transformation and are being pushed to take an experiential approach to their properties to maintain relevance. Owners are being forced to reinvent the environment to create more of a street retail experience.

How else will technology shape the retail landscape in the year to come? Are you seeing evidence of that in your market?

Soutendijk: Technology is going to be one of the great differentiators among retailers over the next few years. The entire shopping process from fabric and color selection, to trying on items of clothing or cosmetics or footwear, to check out and returns, will all be driven by improved technology. If a retailer can't use this tech to keep shoppers happy, they will move to the retailer who can—and who can get them in and out quickly.

Jacobson: We continue to see retailers that have a huge e-commerce presence utilizing data regarding where their products are being shipped to better identify and pinpoint specific markets to place brick-and-mortar locations. This is not a new strategy by any means, but having a couple years of strictly online sales allows these groups to really understand where their customers are before they begin to evaluate real estate options.

Fainchtein and Magnin: Technology has obviously changed the shopping experience through the explosive growth of online sales, but now there is even more pressure on retailers to use technology to enhance in-store shopping. This is going to be increasingly important as millennials are accustomed to using technology in all aspects of their lives. We're seeing a response to that push in new hybrids between traditional in-store and new digital retail experiences. For example, concepts such as Trunk Club and Bonobos that bridge the online and in-store worlds have opened physical stores in major markets like New York, L.A., San Francisco and Chicago.

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The traditional view of retail real estate services used to be centered around leasing or brokerage. That's no longer the case for the growing North American retail services group at Cushman & Wakefield. Seven members of the team recently sat down for an exclusive interview with with Real Estate Forum to discuss the growth of their firm's retail division and key trends currently facing the market. They also weighed in on Cushman & Wakefield's merger with DTZ and how the company has moved well beyond that “outdated transactional approach” that was once commonplace in the business.

PARTICIPANTS

Gene P. Spiegelman, Vice Chairman and Head of North American Retail Services, New York City
Steve Soutendijk, Executive Director, New York City
Michael O'Neill, Senior Director, New York City
Danny Jacobson, Senior Director, Chicago
Greg Masin, Senior Director, Miami
Matthew Fainchtein, Senior Director, Los Angeles
Carter Magnin, Associate, Los Angeles

What is it about Cushman & Wakefield's global retail platform that sets it apart from the competition?

Gene Spiegelman: Cushman & Wakefield delivers a wide-ranging suite of services to retail investors and occupiers. While this remains a notion by some and a goal of others, we've successfully organized our retail industry sector around the delivery of top-tier services that have historically benefited other sectors. With a future-forward approach, we're deploying our superlative talent to meet the omnichannel and global real estate needs of the industry. With an eye toward technology, e-commerce, global supply chain logistics and the quickening pace of demographic and social change, we're helping clients transform the way the world works, shops and lives.

Additionally, collaboration and information sharing is the key in servicing clients across the globe. The secret sauce is communication. Our professionals engage in consistent dialogue across time zones and geography to stay abreast of the changing pace of the industry.

How has the merger with DTZ impacted the firm from a retail services perspective?

Spiegelman: As a result of the merger, we've harnessed a very deep pool of superior retail professionals around the globe whose collective experience, talent and intellect have made an indelible mark upon our industry and landscape, and will continue to do so. By the numbers, Cushman & Wakefield will lead the way as No. 1 in retail leasing, portfolio solutions, valuation and industrial/global supply chain logistics.

What's the hot retail story in your respective cities? What's driving innovation in your markets?

Steve Soutendijk: In New York, food and beverage continue to drive the bulk of retail transactions. As New Yorkers' palates have developed, and as food “culture” in general has become more important, the city craves options and quality. There is a broad spectrum of restaurants and fast-casual users who continue to make New York the best city for food in the world.

Michael O'Neill: The tremendous redevelopment of Lower Manhattan is extraordinary and certainly notable today with the successful opening of Brookfield Place and with Westfield's World Trade Center set to open in a matter of months. There's been a philosophical shift in Manhattan, where more companies and people seek to work and live Downtown. This has benefited developed retail markets south of 23rd Street such as the Flatiron District, the Meatpacking District and SoHo, but no area has added more quality retail than the Financial District in recent years.

Danny Jacobson: The transformation going on in the Fulton Market District on Chicago's West Side—the city's former Meatpacking District—is the hot story now. While the restaurant scene had thrived along Randolph Street, we've witnessed an incredible change over the past few years fueled by the opening of Soho House and Google's new Chicago headquarters. As the meatpacking facilities move out of the area, developers are rushing in to add retail, office, hotels and residential. Fulton Market is quickly becoming one of Chicago's hottest districts for emerging and established retailers alike.

Greg Masin: Growing urbanism is a key driver in Miami. We're waiting on delivery of huge, potentially game-changing projects like Brickell City Centre, a $1-billion mixed-use development in the heart of the Financial District. Innovation is being driven by traffic implosion, so neighborhoods are becoming more self-contained. In the future, you'll live next to where you work because traffic makes commuting an absolute nightmare. We're also seeing a widening chasm between bid and ask on rents as landlords are emboldened by their perception of the market.

Matthew Fainchtein and Carter Magnin: The hot story for retail in Los Angeles comes down to choices. Whereas historically there were only a handful of districts, there are now over a dozen retail submarkets and lifestyle centers for our tenants to consider within the Greater L.A. area. This highly competitive landscape is what's driving innovation. With more options, companies—whether on the tenant or landlord side—have to put out a better product, which ultimately benefits the consumer.

How will shopping centers fare over the next year as e-commerce dominates the conversation?

O'Neill: The top-tier malls and shopping centers in the better markets will continue to evolve as they will opportunistically seek to create a unique and more experiential shopping environment. The objective is to develop an offering for the shopper that promotes frequency and is distinctly different than what one could expect on the web. A major component of effectively developing a strategy that resonates with today's consumer involves entertainment and a well-executed food and beverage offering. These types of tenants act in a similar fashion to the traditional department store anchors as they provide a modern approach to driving consistent traffic, which benefits the in-line retailers occupying the balance of the mall or shopping center.

Masin: Both will remain relevant. If you're on South Beach and see an outfit you want, but you're running late for your flight and go home and buy it online at 2 a.m., who got that sale? Tenants are figuring out how to leverage omnichannel and know that pure sales performance of a physical store is no longer the only metric to consider.

Fainchtein and Magnin: Shopping centers are going through a major transformation and are being pushed to take an experiential approach to their properties to maintain relevance. Owners are being forced to reinvent the environment to create more of a street retail experience.

How else will technology shape the retail landscape in the year to come? Are you seeing evidence of that in your market?

Soutendijk: Technology is going to be one of the great differentiators among retailers over the next few years. The entire shopping process from fabric and color selection, to trying on items of clothing or cosmetics or footwear, to check out and returns, will all be driven by improved technology. If a retailer can't use this tech to keep shoppers happy, they will move to the retailer who can—and who can get them in and out quickly.

Jacobson: We continue to see retailers that have a huge e-commerce presence utilizing data regarding where their products are being shipped to better identify and pinpoint specific markets to place brick-and-mortar locations. This is not a new strategy by any means, but having a couple years of strictly online sales allows these groups to really understand where their customers are before they begin to evaluate real estate options.

Fainchtein and Magnin: Technology has obviously changed the shopping experience through the explosive growth of online sales, but now there is even more pressure on retailers to use technology to enhance in-store shopping. This is going to be increasingly important as millennials are accustomed to using technology in all aspects of their lives. We're seeing a response to that push in new hybrids between traditional in-store and new digital retail experiences. For example, concepts such as Trunk Club and Bonobos that bridge the online and in-store worlds have opened physical stores in major markets like New York, L.A., San Francisco and Chicago.