Shopping Center Business

DEC 2016

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NEW YORK ROUNDTABLE 66 • SHOPPING CENTER BUSINESS • December 2016 tacular. It has a lot of public space and it costs a lot of money to operate these public spaces. Richard Cohan: The Pennsy food hall above Penn Station, that began in the dis- trict of 34th Street a food challenge, sits right in front of Madison Square Garden. They've done very well. A tenant can say no, but we all know the great thing is that a tenant can change their mind. Probably nine years ago, Apple elected not to open on 34th Street. In less than a month, in Macy's, they'll open an Apple store within the store and it's going to have exposure on 34th Street. We see that as a win-win. John Swagerty: The market halls are popular; they're happening all over the place to the point that I have to wonder if the concept is going to wear out. The oth- er question that I have is, when I'm there it's during a weekday at lunchtime and the places are jammed, but who is there in the evenings or the weekends? Is this around the clock that they have a concept that can actually anchor a neighborhood? Stephanou: Eataly certainly is, because if you've ever tried to go to brunch there on Sundays, you'll only do it once and find alternatives. White: Eataly is run by one operator, and that's how you get around a lot of code issues. If you have separate operators, it's very expensive; they've done some unusu- al code things at The Plaza to get around that issue. There is venting, health codes; it's not an easy thing to do a food hall. It would almost have to be run by one operator. Stephanou: Chelsea Market is an exam- ple of multiple vendors; the rents are high. They are thinking of expanding. It is hard to get in there because it is extremely suc- cessful. That's an example of a very tour- ist-driven type of business. White: Don't forget, [Chelsea Market] is basically a row of shops. It's not a tra- ditional food hall, which has very open concepts. Otherwise, it's just something leased with four walls around it. I think it organically grew and expanded and be- came what it is, and I think it's amazing. I love it. Ken Simon: Would you classify Gan- sevoort Market as a food hall? White: I do. Mark Kostic: We just finished a portfo- lio review of basically all of our mixed-use developments to try to figure out what it is that's driving the projects. Considering that food is the trendy retail right now, we're trying to figure out how do you — if we've got 10 of these, instead of doing the same work 10 times over — make an efficient process out of it. If we're doing a pre-existing building in downtown Los Angeles right now, we're going to do a big market food hall, and maybe the same thing in Houston. We just bought Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, so we're going to have 400,000 square feet of retail to re- position there, and then at Winter Place in downtown Sydney, it's the same issue. It's a lot of work to do it yourself, and to go find 12 guys to operate it is difficult. We did 10-year lease structures and the market in New York has changed since we did that, with more of these licensing deals where it was a master operator com- ing in and the outlets turning over. That is interesting because when you have peo- ple turning space over every year or six months, it keeps it fresh. Hudson Eats is 14 individual operators. Simon: How do you find those tenants? Kostic: It was a mix of brokers and our outreach. We knew what we wanted. We wanted something different and some- thing that's up-and-coming, so we got the word out. It's time intensive. SCB: How does an architect look at this area of design and success? Frankie Campione: As you know, most of our work is not in Manhattan, although we've been here for 20 years in our offices. We get to take the best of the trends that start here and then use them elsewhere, although I always joke that design from retail works West to East, and we're finally seeing Long Island catch up. Everybody has been talking about Eataly for a cou- ple of years now, and everybody wants an Eataly concept for their food court. The problem has been that the mall develop- ers don't understand how difficult it is to get that, and their leasing guys want the Wendy's, Sbarro and tenants you've been shopping since we were mall rats in the 1980s. This year at RECon, I met with a number of operators that want to come in and take over the entire food court be- cause they know you want this food hall From left, Sherri White, Witkoff; Scott Plasky, Marcus & Millichap; John Swagerty, Acadia Realty Trust; Nina Kampler. Kampler Advisory Group; Mark Kostic, Brookfield Property Partners.

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