QUOTE UNQUOTE

“ QUOTE un QUOTE ” NICK EGELANIAN

PRESIDENT, SITEWORKS RETAIL REAL ESTATE SERVICES

Nick Egelanian, president of SiteWorks Retail Real Estate Services, recently led a session focused on the future of malls during the Commercial Association of Realtors Wisconsin’s virtual Retail Conference. In a conversation with CARW president and chief executive officer Tracy Johnson, Egelanian discussed his outlook for regional malls locally and nationally as specialty retail continues to evolve. n

“We think that somewhere in the range of 300 to 500 regional malls in the United States will exit productive life over the next three to five years and they will not return to retail use. They will go to other uses. And this may be the best time in the history of real estate in America for those types of sites.”

“I believe that 80% of the remaining malls in the United States are going to collapse in the coming two to three years. … That’s going to leave Milwaukee probably with only one regional mall when it’s all said and done.”

“If you’re in the specialty retail business and you’re not embracing technology, you are way behind already.” “We are social beings, so entertainment and restaurants, particularly, are a huge part of specialty retail going forward.”

“Malls like Mayfair are going to have a lot of extra square footage and they’re going to have some pathways that don’t really work going forward, so they may require as much as a billion, a billion and a half of additional new investment over the next 10 to 15 years. In order for it to maintain its status as having the best retail selection as it loses department stores, it’s going to have to repurpose in some ways and then it’s going to have to fight whatever competition comes.” “So many people think that e-commerce is what is responsible for the demise of the mall, and e-commerce has almost nothing to do with it. As of quarter one this year, e-commerce only represented 10.7% of U.S. retail sales. … So many places in the U.S. that are not urban use the internet very little. They use dollar stores, though. There are 35,000 dollar stores in the U.S.”

Now more than ever, we’re in this for our community.

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