Excellent panel at today's ULI Retail Renaissance Luncheon at the Junior League of Houston. Thank you to representatives from Sueba, Pearland Town Center, and Weitzman Group who attended with me. My top three takeaways are as follows:
It is important that retail developers, managers, and stores work together, and with the community, to create something special. Events. Landscaping. Architecture. Public art. Post-COVID, people want fun, unique, meaningful experiences in beautiful, interesting, welcoming and temperate-conscious places.
Also, they conveyed the importance of driving tenant performance rather than thinking only about signing leases and filling spaces. For example, develop highly digital marketing micro-events to support your smaller tenants. More local niche stores need more support. Property owners and managers should collaborate and build strategies to train tenants for success.
Lastly, autonomous ride share and AI, AGI specifically, may, if successful, revolutionize retail and the overall economy within the next 5 years. It could turbocharge productivity and usher in the greatest deflationary period in history, which will reduce capital costs significantly. While retail evolved rapidly during covid, technology innovation is going to further excelerate that trend.
We want a new experience. It seems like we are going to get it.
This looks awesome.