What are your honest thoughts on the future of retail space?
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[{"id": "fhjpoll", "text": "Grocery store is a different beast than like a clothing store or retailer. Much better IMO. How did you acquire it?", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "fhjral7", "text": "Personally I think the death of retail is exaggerated although I do think location is incredibly important. Mixed use, I would not worry about. Sounds like you\u2019re in a major metropolitan area\n\nEdit: or at least downtown of a decent sized or growing city", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "fhjsjru", "text": "Grocery stores as a whole are pretty stable but location still is a huge factor. As other sectors of retail start to fade more spaces open up at cheaper rates so keep that in mind.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "fhjy82p", "text": "Broadly speaking we are over-retailed. However, the news likes to exaggerate and well located retail that is tailored to its trade area will do well.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "fhkp7nm", "text": "\"retail is humming along just fine\" isn't an exciting headline which causes doom and gloom that isn't really there. My rule of thumb: if it's easier to buy online it'll be tough to have brick and mortar to sell it. Service, experiential, perishable, and things people like to put their hands on all will be fine. In addition, many primarily online retailers have a ton of value with a real store. It helps them cut through the noise of competitors and add to legitimacy, and online traffic goes way up in areas where they have a store.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "fhm2jmb", "text": "I don't think the belief that \"retail is dying\" is true.\n\nReason? Because believe it or not, most eComm business giants operate at a net loss. Many actually need brick-and-mortar stores to help them turn profits.\n\nWhy is that? Because while they might not have the overhead of a retail lease, they do have a tremendously high overhead of FTE (full-time employees). Think about the cost of hiring 3 professionals (SEO, Marketing, etc etc @ $75k/year each = $225k/yr = $18.5k/mo !!) Contrast this with the cost of a retail space in NYC, which you could probably get for $12k/mo (depending on the neighborhood).\n\nMany start-up eComm businesses (e.g. Bonobos) operated at a net-loss for a long time until they opened their brick-and-mortar store to offset those loses. (If you want to learn more about their story, listen to Guy Raz's *How I Made This* podcast)\n\nIn my opinion ... \n\nRetail is not dying - retail is ***evolving***.", "replies": [{"id": "fhppm45", "text": "Plenty of retail is dying .... while it evolves.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "fhmdkfx", "text": "Retail is in big trouble. If I was you I would get rid of all my retail property and get multifamily or industrial.", "replies": [{"id": "fhppz15", "text": "Any retail that can\u2019t be done on the internet (restaurants, dry cleaning, hair/nail salon, etc) is NOT dying.  You paint with too broad of a brush.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "fhmv1zf", "text": "IMHO, retail that is prosperous is experiential.  Amazon is killing the retail box where you go to get monthly items.  People still need to get out of the house and connect. Walk around, have a cup of coffee or drinks and meet up for dinner.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "fi6tf3j", "text": "I think it depends on the business model of the tenant in the space. 10 years ago restaurants only made up about 10-20% of the GLA of a shopping center where today it's more like 40-50%. Due to Amazon, inventory holding costs, and new distribution infrastructure, many concepts are shrinking their footprints. Retail mix has also been shifting to more destination type tenants or retail tenants who can create a user experience to drive guest traffic. Private message me if you want to discuss further and I'll provide whatever insight I can that might be helpful.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]