ICSC: Live from Vegas!
The retail industry is rocking the Strip this week for the 38th annual ICSC RECon, and Bisnow reporters are live on the scene to bring you the latest. (Unless they sleep late, what with all the parties.)
What happens in Vegas this week will surely not stay in Vegas. The 40,000 retail pros in attendance are on a mission to bring back new deals. Buzzwords on the floor this year are growth and expansion, and while many we've asked are cautiously watching this fall's election, it doesn't stop them from crowding the 1,000 booths in search of transactions.
As usual, there's a big DC contingent. At the city's annual bash last night, held this year on the windy Azure pool deck at the Palazzo, we snapped Democratic mayoral nominee Muriel Bowser flanked by Studley's Kim Roth and JBGR's Bethany Scanlon.
Larger firms like Brookfield have big, techy booths to fuel dealmaking, as national director of retail leasing Ed Hogan showed us. (Time for a quick game of World of Warcraft?) Ed's been leasing up tons of space in high profile properties in LA (FIGat7th) and NY (Brookfield Place). The former is a repositioned mall (acquired via Trizec) where Ed scored the nation's first City Target as an anchor, while the latter is in the giant buildings of Lower Manhattan formerly known as the World Financial Center, counting luxury brands like Ferragamo and Burberry as new tenants.
Developer Milt Peterson and his firm's sprawling booth is the first thing one sees walking into one of the Convention Center's three packed exhibit halls. Milt's posing here with a pod from National Harbor's 180-foot Capital Wheel, the tallest observation wheel east of the Mississippi, and tells us it opens to the public this Friday.
The food crowd is not far from Milt's booth. Many culinary concepts have full staffs offering their products. Jersey Mike's director of real estate Mike Parkhill and president Hoyt Jones tell us they're growing fast: 140 locations opened in 2013 and they plan another 175 this year.
McDonald's got in on the action by serving up its McCafe coffee selections to sleep-deprived dealmakers. We'll have more from the show after a break for some other news.
