RETAIL RECON-NAISSANCE
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ICSC's RECon was in full swing yesterday, with more than 30,000 attendees descending on the Las Vegas Convention Center, andBisnow was among them. Marketing firm Miller Ryan?s Jonathan Miller (center, with The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050 author Joel Kotkin and Gentleman McCarty?s Karen Gentleman) sayswe're entering the era of less. Over the next five to 10 years, American families will have less disposable income. The biggest opportunity is within the US, where another 90M people are expected by 2015. (Though most of them are just arriving for the free beef burrito samples in the food court.) But it's going to be a different, more diverse group. ?Think of immigrant populations as developing countries within the US," says Joel. "La Gran Plaza on the outskirts of Fort Worth went from 15 to 300 tenants after it was redeveloped with a Hispanic flavor." And as immigrants become upwardly mobile and move into non-gateway cities, more underperforming malls will be redeveloped. |
