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November 20, 2017

Black Friday—How to Keep Your Retail Out of the Red

By Frank S. Romeo, Jr.

WHAT CAN LENDERS AND INVESTORS DO TO EFFICIENTLY MANAGE RETAIL PORTFOLIOS?

With the first official day of the holiday shopping season right around the corner, property owners are waiting to see how Black Friday sales will impact their retail investments. While brick and mortar store closures make the headlines, retail store openings have actually increased in the past year. A study by the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) predicts a 3.8 percent year-over-year growth in retail holiday sales. The ICSC study also says 91 percent of shoppers plan to shop at brick-and-mortar stores during the holiday season. Nonetheless, it seems that investors are cautious when it comes to investing in or placing debt on many retail properties.

Based on the ICSC study the retail market may not be shrinking, but it’s definitely shifting. Large e-commerce retailers like Amazon are starting to open physical stores, but so are smaller, niche e-retailers like Warby Parker and Bonobos—retailers who recognize that being able to see and touch products adds value for their customers. Meanwhile, retail experiences that are “chores”, like grocery shopping, are moving to online ordering and delivery models—models that require less showroom space and more warehouse and fulfillment space.

Continue reading the GlobeSt blog here.

Frank Romeo

About the Authors

Frank S. Romeo, Jr.

Frank S. Romeo, Jr.

President
Frank S. Romeo, Jr. is a respected leader in the commercial real estate due diligence industry thanks to his deep knowledge of his clients’ business goals and perspectives as well as his technical environmental and engineering matters. A New Jersey native and President of Partner Engineering and Science, Inc., Mr. Romeo manages sixteen national client managers and all technical project managers on the east coast, which includes Partner’s offices in Boston, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charlotte, and Rocky Hill, CT. He heads up Partner Engineering and Science’s East Coast Operations. He has managed thousands of commercial real estate projects and successfully led Partner’s expansion into the engineering design space. He was named as one of Real Estate Forum Magazine’s Forty Under 40 in 2012. Mr. Romeo has performed and managed well over 5,000 environmental site assessments for residential, commercial and industrial properties throughout the United States and internationally. He was a Client Manager at a national due diligence firm where he managed over $25M worth of due diligence projects over his five-year tenure. He was instrumental in several of Partner’s key acquisitions, including LandAmerica Assessment Corporation, Continental Surveying, and Birdsall Services Group, all of which have served as pivotal to Partner’s growth.

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