Is the Retail Market Performing Better Than You Think?
The question of performance, along with the store sales and occupancy, were among the many topics we discussed with retail heavy hitters in advance of the big ICSC - Here, We Go. 2021 conference in Las Vegas this December.
LAS VEGAS—ICSC – Here, We Go. 2021 is fast approaching. The Las Vegas conference will include networking with dealmakers, changemakers and innovators, gatherings and meetups with like-minded professionals. GlobeSt.com caught up with a few retail heavy hitters to talk all things retail.
Michelle Schierberl, SVP of Stream, for example, tells GlobeSt.com that the retail market is performing much better than the average person thinks.
“There has been so much press on store closings and on-line sales that people think retail centers are a thing of the past,” she says. “However, the occupancy on open air centers on a national basis is 91% occupancy today versus 93.5% in 2016.”
According to Schierberl, store sales are actually at records highs for many national retailers. She pointed out that there is a 7.8% decrease in retail uses with existing centers nationally.
“The industry has an optimistic outlook,” she said, adding that the ICSC convention in December will allow personal interaction between retailers and landlords and the many professionals that support the industry which in turn will create new leasing and sale activity.
Schierberl isn’t the only retail expert with this view. In a recent article highlighting the convention, Sandy Sigal, president and CEO of NewMark Merrill Cos., told GlobeSt.com that he sees the state of retail as one of great promise. “Across our portfolio, which includes the west coast, Colorado, and the Midwest, we saw a very rapid increase in traffic and record sales for many of our tenants,” he previously said.
Click here to read more thoughts from experts regarding the state of the industry and their thoughts for the upcoming convention and keep checking back with GlobeSt.com for more coverage surrounding the ICSC event.