A reminder that we're in Las Vegas this week, bringing you all the ICSC action live.With 1,500 atyesterday'sseated luncheon as the backdrop, we snapped ICSC presidentMichael Kerchevaland outgoing chairmanBrad Hutensky(CEO of Hutensky Capital Partners of Hartford, Conn., a fund that invests in underperforming retail through loans, purchases, and JVs). Check out this Friday's National issue for our chat with new ICSC chairmanDavid LaRue,CEO of Forest City Enterprises.
At the Transwestern booth, we snapped president for the Americas Chip Clarke and director of national marketing Kim Croley. Chip says based on the moods at ULI in San Diego last week and in Vegas this week, the real estate economy is on an "upward trajectory." Congrats to the Houston-based, 22-year Transwestern vet, who ascended to his new gig in January after running the Gulf Coast and Mountain region. Now he has seven regions and 33 markets to look after, plus posing for Bisnow ceremonial shots. What did he used to do with all his free time?
"Just give me the damn deal!" Maybe thats not what he said, but we did a double take when we saw former NFL standout Keyshawn Johnson in his RECon badge with the other 32,999 attendees in Vegas. We didnt get a chance to ask the ESPN sports analyst what his ICSC goals were, but we know that his company, Keyshawn Capital Development, focuses on CRE and development projects, including inner-city-revitalization efforts.
Brookfield Office leasing director Ed Hogan talks with a client. The biggest concentrations among Brookfield's 5M SF of retail: 250k SF that'll open in 2014 in NYC's Brookfield Place (the artist formerly known as World Financial Center) and LA's glitzy new FIGat7th, Downtown near LA Live. (The Fig, for non-Angelenos, stands for Figueroa Street.)
NGKF's Cynthia Ellison (from San Antonio), Partner Engineering Service's Misty Vazquez, New York Commercial Real Estate Services' Ravi Idnani, and NY attorney Edward Bullard schmoozed outside (translation: Vegas lacks NYC's humidity), noting accelerated activity across the country.
The Great Recession had less effect on retail store growth than youd expect. Instead, Buxton CEO Tom Buxton says, retailers learned their lessons--and those municipalities with favorable tax and business climates will see new-store growth. If youre a retailer, youre not going to a place where you have inventory tax. Is it because the economy is bad or is it because the government is bad? Tom asks. Where its easy to do business, youre seeing cities do great.
We broke down. AC window-units installed. We're not sorry. Email amanda.metcalf@bisnow.com.
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