News
A Second Dose of ICSC
December 8, 2010
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| We stopped by a number of booths at ICSC’s New York National Conference (see yesterday’s coverage) to find out how retailers are faring from the folks who represent them. This year’s consensus? Things are looking up. We snapped Winick’s Brian Tregerman,Joshua Singer, Louis Eisinger, Adrienne Shea, Darrell Rubens,Joshua Siegelman, and president Benjamin Fox, who says expect retail growth in the spring; the correction in rent is spurring leasing activity. Overall, Benjamin says the ICSC crowd made him feel good, as the retail market is starting to return to normal. |
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| Wanted: sites for Panera Bread in Northern Jersey—4,000 to 5,000 SF freestanding or end-cap, 10-year base. (Strange, we thought they just found bread ovens in the wild and built the site around that.) That's part of what we learned while visiting with Grubb & Ellis’ retail services team: Ronald Cappello, Kenny Yip, Stanley Lindenfeld,Reshmee Rajnarain, Edward Goldmeier, Paul Stanislas, and Henry Goldfarb. Kenny says in addition to looking for Panera sites, his team recently opened stores for TeaGschwendner (hmmm, our spell check exploded), the largest purveyor of loose leaf tea, in Rockefeller Center and the Upper West Side. Stanley and Henry have also been on a leasing spree, bringing Camicissima to the base of Times Square’s Crowne Plaza and Comptoir des Cotonniers and Rag & Bone to 182 Columbus Ave. |
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| Financing on commercial properties is rapidly picking up with the reopening of the CMBS market this year. That's the word from Meridian Capital’s Tal Savariego, Jonathan Stern, Laurie Shapiro, and Allan Lieberman. In July, the firm arranged a $100M 10-year, fixed-rate CMBS loan to refi the 265k SF Barney’s retail condo at 660 Madison Ave, one of the largest and most notable originations since the downturn. Other recent retail financings: $22M for 12,600 SF on the Upper West Side’s Broadway, $12M for a 27,650 SF retail condo on Fifth Ave, $12M for a 24k SF retail space in SoHo, and $8.3M for a 12,800 SF shopping center on Kings Highway in Brooklyn. |
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| 100% occupancy is a beautiful thing as is Massey Knakal's booth, being manned by James Nelson, Paul Massey, and Ken Krasnow. James helped broker American Realty Capital’s recent purchase of six leased retail condos on Bleecker St, which it bought from Beck Street Capital for $34M. He tells us that when the Bleecker St portfolio had fully leased (tenants include Michael Kors and Burberry), bidders quickly stepped up to the plate, and the portfolio sold for a 6.35% cap. Overall, he says there’s a new profile of buyers, especially from overseas (the firm’s website has registered hits from 131 countries). They run the gamut, including locations like South America, Korea, Turkey, and Israel. |
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| Great American Brokerage prez Paul Fetscher should emphasize the “eat” in “Great”—after all, he’s helping a slew of nosheries expand in the metro area. Among his clients: Tilted Kilt, which is looking for 5k to 10k SF in NY and NJ (the restaurant chain has already expanded 60%); Joe’s Bestburger, which seeks 1,500 to 3,000 SF in Fairfield, Westchester, and Long Island; Tasty Cr êpes, which wants 1,000 SF sites on Long Island (no venting required ); George Martin’s Grillfire, which is expanding on Long Island; and Canadian retailer Tim Horton’s, which is looking to take Queens and Long Island by storm with freestanding, end-cap, and drive-thru locations. Fun fact: Tim Horton’s sells 4M cups of coffee and 1M donuts daily. Half that when we take a day off. |
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| The Sperry Van Ness team of Schuyler Boylan, Jodi Tomany,Joseph French, and Brittany Danahy. Two of the firm’s recent transactions included the $28.6M sale of the 204k SF Gunston Plaza in Fairfax County, Va., which received nine offers and went for a 8.69% cap, and the $3M sale of the 52k SF Roebuck Center in Birmingham, Ala., a bank-owned asset that received 10 offers and sold for a 9.9% cap. |
