Hartman Simons Commercial Real Estate Blog

Four on Friday: RECon 2013 Coverage

It’s been a busy but fun week here at Hartman Simons. Many of our attorneys attended the International Council of Shopping Centers’ (ICSC) RECon 2013 convention this week in Vegas, and we’re happy to report that attendance and enthusiasm at the show were high. Our annual party at the House of Blues was once again a rousing success, and we look forward to posting pictures from the party soon.

In the meantime, for this week’s Four on Friday, we provide links to and passages from four stories filed from the show.

• “Dealmakers Leave RECon 2013 Satisfied” – By David Bodamer and Elaine Misonzhnik of National Real Estate Investor.

“The frenzy of meetings and cocktail parties is over. And most of the 33,000-plus attendees of ICSC’s RECon 2013 have gone home tired, but satisfied. Conditions for the retail real estate have settled into a groove. Fundamentals have ticked up. Capital markets continue to loosen. Retailers on the mend and new concepts are out looking for space. That created the perfect conditions for investors, retailers and brokers to get together and talk brass tacks at the Las Vegas Convention Center this week.” 

• “Food for Thought: Factors Behind a Shifting Grocery Landscape” – By Matt Valley of REBusinessOnline.com.

“Ten years ago, consumers generally would select one grocery store as their primary place to shop and identify a second store to pick up a few other items. ‘Today people are shopping in three or four different stores because they are watching cooking shows on the Food Network, or they come from a different ethnic background. So, it’s become a very fragmented market in that regard,’ explained [Joseph] McKeska, [senior vice president of real estate for Bi-Lo Winn-Dixie].”

• “Retailers Adapt, Capture Market Share” – By Natalie Dolce of GlobeSt.com.

“The retail market is continuing to evolve as consumers shift the way they buy and retailers adapt to capturing market share. Retailers are embracing technology to attract customers and improve operational efficiency and gross margin.”

• “Investment Capital Remains Plentiful, Core Assets Still Hard to Find” – By Elaine Misonzhnik of National Real Estate Investor.

“The investment sales market for retail properties appears to be in roughly the same place as it was a year ago—with eager investors hoping to buy core assets, but settling for secondary markets and value-add opportunities. There is no question that both private and institutional investors want to buy real estate today, according to RECon 2013 attendees. The combination of low interest rates, limited new supply of new product and improving sales comps make stabilized retail assets a fool-proof play. But asset availability is limited and competition is fierce.”

Have a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend, everyone!

The Wednesday Wrap: May 22, 2013

Each Wednesday, The Wrap presents a compilation of recent noteworthy commercial real estate stories from a variety of publications. Below are five stories that caught our eyes in recent days.

• “At ICSC, New Concepts, New Approaches” by Natalie Dolce of GlobeSt.com.

GlobeSt.com is covering the events at ICSC RECon 2013 in Las Vegas this week, reporting on the trends that retail industry executives are discussing at the conference.

Financing for retail projects continues to improve as the economy improves, even in secondary and tertiary markets, Patrick Crandall of C&W told GlobeSt.com during his firm’s reception. 

Gary Mozer of George Smith Partners told the outlet that lenders are looking past “quantitative basics” when determining whether to finance an asset.

“Today, lenders are much more focused on the longevity of the asset’s income stream and are delving deeper into the long-term viability of a retail property’s tenants,” Mozer said.

A running theme throughout many RECon discussions has been brick-and-mortar retail’s resilience over Internet shopping, Dolce reports. Retail centers that offer a “human experience” that can’t be replicated online will do well, said Craig Killman of Jones Lang LaSalle.

• “Retail Development Back on the Horizon” by Elaine Misonzhnik of National Real Estate Investor.

As the retail real estate market continues to improve, industry players are beginning to conceive new projects, Elaine Misonzhnik reports from RECon.

Publicly traded REITs like Taubman Centers and Regency Centers are in the planning stages for new centers. These new centers will most likely be in urban markets with smaller footprints, Misonzhnik reports.

Even smaller regional developers have been thinking about new projects that could start within the next few years, according to Misonzhnik.

• “Retail Rent Growth Finally Takes Root Across U.S. Metros” by Randyl Drummer of CoStar.

Quoted asking rents are finally rising across all retail property types for the first time since 2008, according to CoStar’s “First Quarter 2013 Retail Review and Outlook.”

This growth is a result of more than two years of recovery in the sector’s operating fundamentals, according to CoStar real estate economist Ryan McCullough.

CoStar expects retail construction to increase some in 2013. Outlet centers are the first wave of new development, with six centers across the country under construction and about another dozen in planning, Drummer reports.

• “Restaurants, Luxury Tenants Are Once Again in Expansion Mode” by Elaine Misonzhnik of National Real Estate Investor.

The retail real estate market is gaining traction, but leasing activity and aggressive expansion are still more prevalent in larger, urban markets, according to leasing executives attending RECon.

Restaurants, luxury retailers and apparel sellers have been among the most active tenants at high-end retail sites in metro New York, Francis X. Scire Jr. of Simon Property Group told Misonzhnik.

Kemper Development reports lots of interest from high-end retailers like Tesla Motors, Microsoft and Apple, at The Bellevue Collection, the firm’s Class-A property in Bellevue, Wash.

But for retail properties in many secondary and tertiary markets, conditions aren’t as favorable. Some shopping centers built during the boom in markets like Atlanta will have to be redeveloped for other uses, according to Scott Prigge of Regency Centers.

• “Construction Picks Up across South, Metro Atlanta” by Douglas Sams of the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

The southern region of the United States — stretching from Texas to Georgia and up to the Carolinas — has a construction backlog of 9.3 months, the longest backlog of any U.S. region, according to recent data from the Associated Builders and Contractors.

The backlog gauges construction work that will be performed by industrial and commercial contractors in the coming months, Sams reports.

Atlanta has seen construction demand pick up in the housing, retail and industrial sectors, Sams reports. The new Falcons stadium slated for Atlanta could be a major catalyst for new development in the city’s downtown core, he adds.

Kilberg and Rothschild Discuss Outlet Center Leases in Value Retail News

The May 2013 issue of Value Retail News features a guest column by Lori Kilberg and Benno Rothschild in which the Hartman Simons partners detail the five outlet-center lease provisions that landlords and tenants should pay especially close attention to. In the piece, titled "The Fab Five: Outlet Clauses to Live By," Kilberg and Rothschild discuss use provisions, operating covenants, radius restrictions, co-tenancy provisions and early termination rights.

Click on the following link to view Kilberg's and Rothschild's column on outlet center leases. The column has been reprinted and shared with permission from Value Retail News.

 

Retail Real Estate Continues to Gather Momentum

Simons

With many major chains opening new stores and investors showing strong interest in retail properties, the retail real estate sector is set to continue its recovery in the second half of 2013.

That’s the take of Hartman Simons, which represents tenants and landlords in retail leases as well as investors in retail properties. The firm provided its analysis as the 2013 ICSC RECon convention got underway in Las Vegas. The retail real estate convention runs from May 19 through May 22.

Retail investment sales “have been blistering,” said Bob Simons, a partner with the firm. “Leasing has been picking up too. Our work in those areas is up significantly over last year and dramatically from 2009 and 2010.”

“We are very optimistic about the rest of this year,” Simons added. “I think investment sales could become even more competitive.”

REITs and institutional investors are in hot pursuit of core assets, such as grocery-anchored shopping centers, in major urban markets, and the capitalization rates for the sales of those properties have compressed to 2007 levels, Simons said. Meanwhile, individual and pension-fund investors, in search of higher yields than the miniscule returns offered by Treasury bonds, have been gobbling up single-tenant, net-lease retail properties, such as drug stores and banks, across the country, he said.

The sector is experiencing the expansion of several major retailers, Simons said. Sporting-good chains and specialty grocers are among those expanding aggressively, Simons said.

Unfortunately, financing can still be difficult to obtain for smaller retailers. “Mom-and-pop tenants and local retailers are still struggling for access to capital,” Simons said.

Four on Friday: David Tennery of Regent Partners

A 30-year veteran of the commercial real estate industry, David Tennery is the principal of Regent Partners’ Office Properties and Development Group. Tennery joined Regent Partners in 2004 and over the course of his career, he has been involved in the development of nearly 6 million square feet of office, retail, industrial, mixed-use and hotel properties in the United States and Latin America.

In this Four on Friday, we talk with Tennery about his firm, his decision to leave accounting for commercial real estate and his love of the beach.

Give us a brief overview of the services offered by Regent Partners.

Tennery: Regent is a 25-year-old, full-services commercial real estate firm based in Atlanta. Regent has partnered with some of the largest institutional and fund organizations in the United States and Europe, as well as with local and regional groups with a focus on the greater Southeastern U.S. markets.

We develop hotels, offices, mixed-use sites and residential properties. Our passion for meaningful development and a history of strong execution on often very complex projects have allowed us to bring highly notable community-enhancing properties to our markets, including both new and re-development projects. With a key focus on value-add, Regent also has a strong record in the areas of acquisition, asset management, on-site property services and, when the time comes, asset disposition.

Looking ahead to the next few years, what's the biggest reason for optimism regarding Atlanta's commercial real estate market and what's the biggest cause for concern?

Tennery: Atlanta, while no more or no less challenged than other fast-growing major U.S. cities, does hold the strong advantage of truly being a great place to live, work and raise a family. The value proposition Atlanta offers is unusual in that our combination of a skilled and well-educated work force with a very cost-effective, high quality of life frequently puts Atlanta in the top tier of consideration for growth-oriented companies. When you add the fact that Atlanta is so well positioned to serve companies and individuals that require heavy domestic or international travel, we are hard to beat. 

If we look back over the past six months alone, we will see that more than one office submarket recovery has been fueled in large part by the in-migration of both corporate and tech-based firms.

From a risk perspective, we have a handful of substantive issues to resolve, but the issue that I find circling in my head frequently is the need to get focused on a real plan that over the next five to 20 years can put Atlanta at the forefront of multimodal-oriented transportation. Regionally, we certainly have the required highly capable human resources, but it will take the rare type of leadership that can and is willing to completely set politics and county/city boundary wars aside and reach for the best long-term overall solution.

We understand that you entered commercial real estate after being an accountant for a period of time. What spurred that move?

Tennery: It didn’t take long to realize that I was simply not an accounting personality nor did I really care to be. In the first two years of my professional life, I began to realize that I was much more of a big-picture visionary than I was a detailed, numbers guy.

Spending a lot of time in New York in my youth, I developed a strong interest in skylines and the work behind them, so I began looking at real estate development firms. My first real estate job, which was in Texas, landed me in a project-finance role, which was a good fit and a great way to learn the business. At the end of the day, my passion for working with a team that is serious about creating places that bring value and beauty to a community has been my professional driver, so development, re-positioning and marketing-type roles have been my greatest enjoyment. I do my best to limit my hands-on accounting to balancing my checkbook!  

A light-hearted question: What's your favorite place to vacation?

Tennery: There are lots of places I enjoy and can unwind, but the real answer would be the coastlines of the world. Sara and I both love to travel and love the beach, so we could be spotted walking on a beautiful beach most anywhere on the globe (or at least the ones that are three flight connections or less from Atlanta).

Related articles

Four on Friday: Chris Bosworth of CBRE

Four on Friday: Mitchell Brannen of NAI Brannen Goddard

Four on Friday: Kris Miller of Ackerman & Co.

Four on Friday: Bisnow's Atlanta Retail Real Estate Summit

Multi-Housing News Online Interviews Hartman Simons' Summey Orr about Multifamily Investment

Multi-Housing News Online recently interviewed Hartman Simons managing partner Summey Orr about the state of the multifamily sector. During the Q&A, Orr offered the following take on investor interest in the apartment sector:

"On the investment side, we are seeing some fatigue in the market for multifamily. The popularity of these assets versus other property types that have come out of the recession more slowly has brought a fair amount of investor competition for apartment projects, in some cases driving up prices beyond the realm of common sense. It’s not yet to the point of the mythical restaurant that’s so crowded that nobody goes there anymore, but this sector has certainly attracted a group of buyers who previously didn’t fish in this pond."

To read the rest of the five-question Q&A, visit Multi-Housing News Online.

The Wednesday Wrap: May 15, 2013

Each Wednesday, The Wrap presents a compilation of recent noteworthy commercial real estate stories from a variety of publications. Below are five stories that caught our eyes in recent days.

• “Malls, Self-Storage Led REITs in First Quarter” by A.D. Pruitt of The Wall Street Journal.

The performance of real estate investment trusts (REITs) exceeded analysts’ expectations in many cases during the first quarter, and REITs focusing on luxury shopping malls and self-storage facilities saw the largest gains, Pruitt reports.

Upscale malls and outlet centers that appeal to a wide range of shoppers haven’t been significantly impacted by online competition, according to Alexander Goldfarb, an analyst with Sandler O’Neill + Partners.

Additionally, self-storage REITs have performed strongly because of rising rents and strong tenant demand, Pruitt notes.

Office and apartment landlords continued to see earnings growth, but at a slower pace than in past quarters because of lackluster employment growth and increased competition, Pruitt reports.

• “Property Values Hovering Around Market Peaks” by Carisa Chappell of REIT.com.

“Five years after the onset of the global financial crisis, bellwether pricing indices indicate that commercial property values appear to have reached — if not surpassed — the market peaks of 2007,” Chappell writes.

According to the Green Street Advisors’ Commercial Property Price Index, commercial property values increased 1 percent in April, putting them above 2007 levels.

Another index showed that the unlevered property values of REIT-owned properties nationwide were almost even at the end of April with their January 2007 levels, Chappell reports.

• “Colliers: Shopping Centers’ National Vacancy Rate Down in Q1” by Marianne Wilson of Chain Store Age.

Shopping centers absorbed nearly 4.5 million square feet in the first quarter, causing the national vacancy rate to drop ever so slightly, from 10.09 percent to 10.06 percent, according to Colliers International’s “2013 Q1 North American Retail Highlights” report.

As the housing and job markets improve, consumers’ confidence is rising, and they’re spending more, the report notes. The six North American markets with the most shopping center leasing activity are also cities that are experiencing significant long-term employment growth and strengthening housing markets, according to the report.  

• “Expect Fed Decisions to Impact Lodging” by John Salustri of GlobeSt.com.

The Lodging Industry Investment Council’s annual member survey shows concern over the impact that sequestration and Obamacare will have on the market. 

Sequestration is “anticipated to negatively impact hotel owners,” the report says. “Fifty-five percent believe that the current government sequestration will cause ADR to decrease 1 percent to 5 percent in markets that rely heavily on government spending.”

Increased labor costs stemming from the new federal healthcare law and the sluggish economy are also expected to affect the industry, Salustri reports.

• “Running to Stand Still: The Office Sector Sees Marginal Improvements” by Brad Doremus and Victor Calanog of National Real Estate Investor. 

With sluggish job growth leading to equally sluggish growth in demand for office space, the national office vacancy rate declined just 10 basis points during the first quarter to 17 percent — the exact amount it declined in the prior quarter, Doremus and Calanog report. More expansive job growth would have a dramatic impact on the rate “since supply additions are virtually nil,” they add.

Asking and effective rents grew by 0.7 percent during the first quarter. “Despite 10 consecutive quarters of rent increases, rent levels are still anchored at benchmarks last observed in late 2007,” Doremus and Calanog report.

Still, tech- and energy-heavy markets are outperforming the national average in terms of asking and effective rent growth, Doremus and Calanog note.

EPA Provides New Guidance on a Prospective Tenant’s Environmental Liability, Due Diligence and BFPP Status

By Clinton Cole,

Partner, Hartman Simons

It is a common mistake among prospective tenants to assume they have no liability for past environmental issues at a property.  As such, tenants often perform less than adequate environmental due diligence prior to leasing a property, or they rely on sub-standard or outdated information provided by a property owner or lender with interests and risks far different from theirs.  Under CERCLA (and similar state environmental statutes), a tenant may be liable for past environmental releases on its leased property. Unlike prospective purchasers, who have historically been afforded so called “innocent purchaser” defenses if they performed a sufficient level of environmental due diligence prior to acquisition of the property, CERCLA did not specifically address the risks and protections for prospective tenants. In late 2012, EPA issued a memorandum further addressing tenant liability under CERCLA: Revised Enforcement Guidance Regarding the Treatment of Tenants Under the CERCLA Bona Fide Prospective Purchaser Provision (Dec. 5, 2012), which supersedes its Jan. 14, 2009, guidance on this topic.

The 2002 CERCLA Amendments and Continued Uncertainty for Prospective Tenants

The passage of the CERCLA “Brownfields Amendments” in 2002 provided the bona fide prospective purchaser (BFPP) definition and clarified some potential environmental risks to prospective owners and tenants; however, significant gaps and uncertainty remained regarding how a prospective tenant fit into the BFPP definition.  Since 2002, the BFPP status and derivative protections only applied to a prospective tenant if the underlying property owner qualified as a BFPP (i.e., a tenant derived its liability protection from the underlying property owner’s BFPP status and not directly based on the tenant’s action or inaction in its due diligence prior to leasing the property).

Four on Friday: Kris Miller of Ackerman & Co.

As president of Atlanta-based Ackerman & Co., Kris Miller sets the strategic direction for the firm’s investment, management and leasing initiatives. Miller joined the firm in 1996, and during his tenure, Ackerman & Co. has experienced significant growth and has solidified its reputation as one of the most prominent real estate firms in the Southeastern United States.

In this Four on Friday, we got a chance to chat with Miller about the state of the Atlanta commercial real estate market and his career in the industry.

Give us a brief overview of the services offered by Ackerman & Co.

Miller: Ackerman is a full-service commercial real estate company. We represent tenants seeking space, landlords renting space, and manage owned and third-party space. We also buy, sell and develop commercial real estate properties. 

What is your take on how the Atlanta commercial real estate market has recovered from the Great Recession? 

Miller: The recovery of the Atlanta commercial real estate market from the recession of 2008 has been gradual. Positive absorption of industrial space began in 2011, followed by the positive absorption of office space a year later. In both cases, those markets had endured net negative absorption for a longer period than any time in Atlanta’s history. The recovery now seems to be gaining momentum and spreading from the submarkets where it began to a metro-wide phenomenon.

What is it about commercial real estate that makes it such a satisfying career for you?

Miller: Commercial real estate is satisfying because the effort of your labor is tangible: you can touch it, see it, visit it, and explain to friends and colleagues what you do for a living.

If you could give one piece of advice to someone just beginning his or her commercial real estate career, what would it be?

Miller: Get experience as a tenant broker. All the value in commercial real estate is created when a broker brings a tenant to a landlord and a lease is signed. The better you understand this process, the more successful you will be in this business.

Related articles

Four on Friday: Chris Bosworth of CBRE

Four on Friday: Mitchell Brannen of NAI Brannen Goddard

The Wednesday Wrap: May 8, 2013

Each Wednesday, The Wrap presents a compilation of recent noteworthy commercial real estate stories from a variety of publications. Below are five stories that caught our eyes in recent days.

• “Health-Care Owners Shun Nursing Homes” by A.D. Pruitt of The Wall Street Journal.

Some of the largest owners of healthcare facilities are scaling back their investments in nursing homes because of their growing concerns that the homes will be less profitable in the face of steep Medicare and Medicaid cuts, Pruitt reports.

Ventas Inc. has said it will won’t make any major new acquisitions until the effects of the cuts become clear, while others, like Health Care REIT Inc., say they might exit the sector altogether, Pruitt reports. 

A number of states are reducing Medicaid reimbursement payments to nursing homes, and the federal government cut Medicare rates by 2 percent on April 1 as part of the sequestration, Pruitt notes.

Other firms say they aren’t concerned about possible sequester-induced cuts and that the market risk is overstated, Pruitt reports.

• “Office Demand Still Catching Up With Job, Business Growth” by Randyl Drummer of CoStar.

Modest job growth has prevented a dramatic increase in demand for U.S. office space, and therefore rents have remained at relatively low levels, Drummer reports.

Average office employment is growing at a rate of just more than 2 percent, while demand for space is growing at just half that rate, according to CoStar Group’s First-Quarter 2013 Office Review and Outlook.

In the first quarter, the national office vacancy rate declined 10 basis points to 12.2 percent. The post-recession high was 13.5 percent, according to Drummer.

• “Samsung Opening 1,400 Mini-Shops inside Best Buy Stores across U.S.” by Salvador Rodriquez of The Los Angeles Times. 

Samsung is planning to open hundreds of mini-shops across the country inside Best Buy big-box locations, Rodriquez reports.

The electronics giant already has opened a couple of the shops and hopes to have 900 of them up and running by the end of May and 500 more shortly after, according to Rodriquez. 

Samsung considered opening its own retail locations, but found that partnering with Best Buy would allow it to open the stores more quickly, Ketrina Dunagan, Samsung’s vice president of retail and channel marketing, told Rodriquez. 

• “Miami’s Condo Market Rebounds, Stoking a Building Boom” by Terry Pristin of The New York Times.

Because of the demand of Latin American investors, only about 600 of the 22,000 condos created in downtown Miami during the pre-recession era are still on the market, Pristin reports. Now, developers are building more units, he adds. 

In February, home values rose by 10.4 percent in Miami versus a year ago, while national home prices jumped 9.3 percent, Pristin notes. 

Miami officials are encouraging condo developers to provide easy access to public transportation, street-level retail and underground parking, Pristin reports.

• VIDEO: “Quick Study: REITs Beat Market in April” by Allen Kenney of REIT.com.

In this clip, NAREIT Editorial Director Allen Kenney and Senior Vice President of Research and Industry Information Brad Case discuss the REIT market’s performance in April.

The two discuss how the REIT market performed in relation to the rest of the stock market and which sectors stood out for their performances.