CBRE Launches Specialized Mall Repositioning Team

CBRE has launched a specialized team to help property owners reposition traditional malls by harnessing the company’s proprietary local intelligence tech.

The team will be led by Mark Hunter, a managing director of CBRE’s Mall and Large Format practice area, together with Todd Caruso, senior managing director of Retail Investor Services. Hunter and Caruso each bring more than 30 years of experience to their roles: Hunter has spent his career working alongside some of the CRE industry’s largest mall investors on leasing, asset management and development projects, while Caruso oversees the company’s property management and investor leasing business in the Americas.

 The new group will use the firm’s local intelligence technology to assess demand for complementary uses or product types, including a property’s surrounding demographics, retail spending information, logistics value, segmentation, employment data, customer traffic patterns, and competitive landscapes, the firm said in a statement.   “This data can help owners develop innovative strategies to support complementary uses to retail and create live, work and play environments,” Hunter said. “Using a data-based approach, mall owners are successfully repositioning properties for a wide range of uses including multifamily, hotel, office, healthcare, logistics or life sciences. There’s never been a time where there was more opportunity for mall owners to get creative in order to maximize value.”

CBRE plans to use the data captured to initiate new leasing, redevelopment, financing, sales and securing public incentives. The new team will also work with CBRE partner Streetsense, a strategy and design firm that repositions and transforms real estate properties.

 “Change has been taking place for some time in the retail world,” Caruso said. “The question we are asking: What is the highest and best use for the property/? It will be a different answer for each property, but for any mall with strong underlying real estate, we believe there is a solution to maximize its value. It may not always be solely retail.”

As the US economy begins to recover from the pandemic, retail developers have increasingly focused on repurposing struggling malls to better align with changed consumer shopping patterns. Brixton Capital recently purchased several malls in quaternary markets throughout the country and is in the process of hiring a vice president of development to lead the repositioning of these retail properties.

“As tenants continue to re-evaluate their space needs due to omni-channeling or moving away from certain markets, retail owners may have fewer options for the same boxes,” Brixton Capital president Mark Selman told GlobeSt.com in an earlier interview. “Developers need to hire executives who understand the opportunities and limitations for re-use of retail space including local regulations, lease requirements and restraints, and the costs involved, and can speak to tenants in a way that keeps all of the stakeholders happy. They need to have a comprehensive understanding of what can be done in the space and how to accomplish it.”