Retail Real Estate

Given how consumer-centric the U.S. economy is — Knowing shopping is Americans’ favorite pastime! — perhaps no segment of commercial real estate is more pure, plain fun than retail real estate.

CRELIX knows retail real estate 360 degrees around: Development, investment, brokerage, sales, leasing, property management, asset management and more. We took note recently when CoStar research revealed that, for the first time in the U.S., more retail square footage is being leased to tenants that do not sell merchandise than tenants who do. In other words, today’s retail real estate occupiers are even more likely to be providing a service or experience versus selling physical products. That includes all manner of food and beverage, fitness and wellness, medtail, and the range of other users who are reinventing the retail real estate sector.

Of course e-commerce continues to change shopping as well, and we can see how digitally native brands — some of which operate with bricks and mortar locations and some of which don’t — are impacting the retail market and consumer behavior. 

We love how people connect through retail real estate, and we appreciate the power of retail to anchor communities, literally. Malls, far from dead, are stronger than ever in many cases. And the proliferation of lifestyle centers, which represent the natural evolution of the regional shopping center, is remarkable and yet totally understandable. We love hanging out at them, too!

Over the years we’ve served a variety of retail real estate clients in different roles in the industry. Perhaps the most fun we had in recent years was working for a leading Midwest retail real estate brokerage firm representing owner-investors and tenants across multiple states. As their real estate PR firm [internal site link] and a corporate marketing partner, we lived and breathed every aspect of their business as we helped make it better. There’s no more satisfying reward than that.