Shopping Center Business is the leading monthly business magazine for the retail real estate industry.
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VINTAGE 80 • SHOPPING CENTER BUSINESS • August 2016 V intage intage Real Estate, LLC has con- V Real Estate, LLC has con- tinued to move forward with its redevelopment projects over the past year, despite the loss of its founder, legendary real estate icon Fred Sands, in October 2015. The Los Angeles-based company has acquired regional malls and community centers across the Unit- ed States, injecting capital and leasing plans to recreate vibrant community hubs. At the helm of the company now is Chairman Carla Sands, widow of Fred Sands, and an experienced team of retail real estate executives. That team includes Robert Licht, chief financial officer and chief operating officer; Kenneth Hocker, executive vice president of development; John Desco, executive vice president of asset management and Roger Burghdorf, executive vice president of leasing. "If there was a silver lining to Fred's passing it was that Carla Sands was al- ready involved in the company," says Licht. "They began to have succession plan discussions years ago. She has been involved in the management of the com- pany for the past three years. She has been involved in all the operations of the cen- ters and the company; she has not been thrown into the deep end of the pool." "Fred used to say that he wasn't going to live forever and he wanted me involved with his businesses," says Carla Sands. "We've really focused on carrying through Fred's legacy in all his businesses, which was to carry through beyond the com- merce of business and benefit the commu- nities that those businesses impact. I don't know anyone who has been involved in different charitable groups and commu- nity outreach than Fred. He always made that a piece of doing business wherever he went. With Vintage Real Estate, we are continuing that through our malls." Vintage Real Estate acquired nearly 4 million square feet of regional retail space since its origination. All the properties — purchased individually — had financial distress, and were also neglected by their previous owners. But they all had two oth- er common factors: they had at one point been the hub of retail for their communi- ties and they still had little competition. The centers were all undercapitalized and more tenants were leaving than finding their way to the center. After taking con- trol, Vintage found that many of the cen- ters had sales in the low $200 per square foot range. "All the centers we purchased were in good growth, strong markets," says Hock- er. "We went through each property in- dividually upon acquisition and started crafting a redevelopment process for each of them." After acquiring a center, Vintage works on how to achieve maximum sales pro- ductivity for its tenants. When the com- pany entered this business, it did so with the philosophy that sales start with taking care of the community. "Our tenants were very excited about that, because they saw us as a landlord who wasn't just there to collect the rent," says Hocker. "They saw that we were there to put together the right tenant mix. When the mix is right, the sales are right. When the sales are right, that converts to better rents and occupancy for us. We try to give the customer exactly what they want, and we're nuts about that." Today, the company has a national footprint, owning centers from Washing- ton to California, from Massachusetts to Georgia. The centers that Vintage owns are all in various stages of redevelopment. South- Bay Pavilion in Carson, California, which the company acquired in 2009, has been redeveloped by adding restaurants like Reinventing Communities Vintage Real Estate has made a name for itself by acquiring distressed regional malls and turning them into community hubs. Randall Shearin SouthBay Pavilion in Carson, California, is one of Vintage's many successful turnaround stories.