Bisnow has a new podcast series, Let’s Have A Drink, where we sit down with the personalities who shape Washington, D.C., real estate — one of the most complex and affluent markets in the country.
Hosted by Bisnow East Coast Editor Ethan Rothstein, we examine the deals, the disappointments and, of course, drinks of choice. You can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify or SoundCloud.
In our debut episode in D.C., Bisnow sat down with Don Wood, the CEO of Federal Realty Investment Trust, a publicly traded firm based in Rockville. We met at the Canopy Hotel in Pike & Rose, Federal's huge mixed-use development on Rockville Pike.
We talked about the retail industry, how Federal helped pioneer suburban mixed-use development and why retail still "sucks."
"[Retail] supply exceeds demand in the United States of America. That is the definition of a business that sucks: supply exceeds demand," he said. "It will take years and years and years to effectively adjust that to whatever the new world is, because the new world is not today."
Despite the realities of the industry, "it's more stable than people realize," he said.
Wood also touched on Federal's properties in the shadow of Amazon HQ2, working for Donald Trump and when he plans to retire.
