WOODLAND HILLS, CA—Communicating with a community and really listening to their feedback are the keys to successful redevelopment efforts, NewMark Merrill Cos.' CEO Sandy Sigal tells GlobeSt.com. The firm has been strictly focused on retail development, redevelopment, acquisitions, leasing and property management for the last 20 years. We sat down with Sigal to discuss why redevelopment matters to stakeholders in a property's surrounding area and how the company has found success through redevelopment.

GlobeSt.com: Why is redevelopment important to a property, city and industry?

Sigal: One of our mottos is to make every community we're in better. We want to balance the consistency of the experiences that allow people to define their neighborhood with enough change so that people feel they're moving in a positive way. We want to lead the enhancement and development of a neighborhood, and we want to do that by redevelopment. One example of this is Crenshaw Imperial Plaza, an old shopping center in Inglewood, CA. There were a number of tenants, but it had become rundown. People's perception of a neighborhood is what's right in front of them. So, we invested in this property, signed on new tenants, and now people come up to me and say, “God bless you for investing in our community.” It gives you chills when people drive past your project on their way home and are newly proud and moved to invest in their homes and to stay. When we remodel, it gives renewed energy to a neighborhood.

GlobeSt.com: What factors make a property a good candidate for redevelopment?

Sigal: The key is, if we own it, it's already a good property. You don't want to put good money after bad. You may have reached that point where it doesn't feel fresh and there are other better centers in the area, or maybe the community deserves better and we can upgrade our look. We're adding a lot of reader boards displaying digital messages—you can do that now. There are a number of things you can do to really jazz up a center and freshen it up. It's also a matter of helping tenants to right size their space—if you have one tenant that is doing well but their space is twice as big as they need and another that is growing and needs more space, you work with them to help both tenants. These are the important things.

GlobeSt.com: Why has NewMark Merrill been successful with redevelopment projects?

Sigal: We share a community message of why we're doing what we're doing through marketing. We also listen to what the community is looking for, and I also listen to my tenants. Hopefully, you put all those things together and deliver a vision. Often, that vision is a little farther than what the community wants, but you can push them in a direction they didn't even know they needed to go, but it starts by taking their pulse and finding out what they want.

GlobeSt.com: Describe some of your current redevelopment projects?

Sigal: In Anaheim, we were working on a big center with a supermarket that was not generating much traffic, so we decided to change it to a more ethnic market. We ended up with double the traffic and sales. In Chicago, we re-tenanted a property that was not generating exciting product anymore, and it became super successful for us. This is a big part of what we do.

WOODLAND HILLS, CA—Communicating with a community and really listening to their feedback are the keys to successful redevelopment efforts, NewMark Merrill Cos.' CEO Sandy Sigal tells GlobeSt.com. The firm has been strictly focused on retail development, redevelopment, acquisitions, leasing and property management for the last 20 years. We sat down with Sigal to discuss why redevelopment matters to stakeholders in a property's surrounding area and how the company has found success through redevelopment.

GlobeSt.com: Why is redevelopment important to a property, city and industry?

Sigal: One of our mottos is to make every community we're in better. We want to balance the consistency of the experiences that allow people to define their neighborhood with enough change so that people feel they're moving in a positive way. We want to lead the enhancement and development of a neighborhood, and we want to do that by redevelopment. One example of this is Crenshaw Imperial Plaza, an old shopping center in Inglewood, CA. There were a number of tenants, but it had become rundown. People's perception of a neighborhood is what's right in front of them. So, we invested in this property, signed on new tenants, and now people come up to me and say, “God bless you for investing in our community.” It gives you chills when people drive past your project on their way home and are newly proud and moved to invest in their homes and to stay. When we remodel, it gives renewed energy to a neighborhood.

GlobeSt.com: What factors make a property a good candidate for redevelopment?

Sigal: The key is, if we own it, it's already a good property. You don't want to put good money after bad. You may have reached that point where it doesn't feel fresh and there are other better centers in the area, or maybe the community deserves better and we can upgrade our look. We're adding a lot of reader boards displaying digital messages—you can do that now. There are a number of things you can do to really jazz up a center and freshen it up. It's also a matter of helping tenants to right size their space—if you have one tenant that is doing well but their space is twice as big as they need and another that is growing and needs more space, you work with them to help both tenants. These are the important things.

GlobeSt.com: Why has NewMark Merrill been successful with redevelopment projects?

Sigal: We share a community message of why we're doing what we're doing through marketing. We also listen to what the community is looking for, and I also listen to my tenants. Hopefully, you put all those things together and deliver a vision. Often, that vision is a little farther than what the community wants, but you can push them in a direction they didn't even know they needed to go, but it starts by taking their pulse and finding out what they want.

GlobeSt.com: Describe some of your current redevelopment projects?

Sigal: In Anaheim, we were working on a big center with a supermarket that was not generating much traffic, so we decided to change it to a more ethnic market. We ended up with double the traffic and sales. In Chicago, we re-tenanted a property that was not generating exciting product anymore, and it became super successful for us. This is a big part of what we do.