Shop Around: From Clicks to Bricks and Optimizing the Shopping Experience

Spencer Levy
I'm Spencer Levy, and this is The Weekly Take. On our last episode, we went shopping to kick off the holiday season -- a detailed review of trends in retail today, in stores and online, and an outlook for tomorrow. Now we offer a complement to that conversation. On this episode. We flipped the script from the occupier’s point of view to the landlord’s, in part two of our retail series.

Brian Harper
Every day is a new treasure hunt for the consumer.

Spencer Levy
That's Brian Harper, president and CEO of RPT Realty, one of the largest publicly traded retail rates in the country. RPT’s Holdings focus on open air retail, with some 70 percent anchored around a grocery store tenant. Headquartered in New York City, RPT’s properties stretch from the east coast of the U.S. to the Rocky Mountain region.

Lisa Stoddard
You have to make it worthwhile to get your consumer out from in front of the computer and into your store.

Spencer Levy
And that's Lisa Stoddard, a CBRE executive vice president based in our Washington, D.C., office. Lisa brings more than 25 years of perspective on this area with a focus on large format, mixed use and street level retail. She advises on investment strategies for deals around the region and nationwide. In a conversation we recorded just after the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, we discussed the early returns and changes in a sector that's on the rebound after the pandemic. We also get into formats, consumer behavior and the idea of shopping as a treasure hunt, and more. Coming up, the only item you need on your shopping list, an investor’s perspective of the retail sector. That's right now on The Weekly Take.

Spencer Levy
Welcome to The Weekly Take. It's great to have both of you today, the peak retail selling season of the year. And frankly, the news has been pretty good. Brian, what are you hearing on that front?

Brian Harper
Numbers look good. Traffic looks good across mall and open air. So I'm optimistic that that will come out pretty darn good.

Spencer Levy
Lisa, what are you hearing?

Lisa Stoddard
Same for me to see the in-store sales up 43 percent for Black Friday. But I think one thing that's worthy of note is that's just a day and it's a season now. Black Friday is important, but not as much as in the past. I think it's a whole season and this year stretched out even longer. I think 60 percent of people said they started their holiday shopping pre-Thanksgiving. So I think the numbers overall for the season will be even more impressive.

Spencer Levy
Well, it's good to hear good news. But there are some, certainly, clouds on the horizon that are giving concern. One of them is with respect to inflation and the pressure on the consumer because of that. Brian, how does that factor into your thinking?

Brian Harper
The concern I have on inflation really depends on what kind of retail essential versus discretionary per se. Higher inflation rates do erode purchasing power, obviously, but the focus for me has been on really providing our consumers with service, essential base retailers mixed with a little bit of experiential that will thrive in any environment and being less focused on 100 percent discretionary. It's a blending of both.

Lisa Stoddard
The good news is that saving rates for Americans was at an all time high during the pandemic, and so they're spending. That's the good news. So I think, as Brian said, it's going to be the type of retail that you have. And value retail probably does even better and the experience side being even more important than ever before too, rounded up.

Spencer Levy
Well, Lisa, I think since you used that word experience, give us a flavor for how the in-store experience is changing, whatever the retailer is doing from both a structural standpoint, changing the design of the store and from a strategy standpoint, changing how they mix up their goods and experience.

Lisa Stoddard
You have to make it worthwhile to get your consumer out from in front of the computer and into your store. We've talked about Nike. They start that customer engagement with their brand -- it reaches you before you ever get to the store. Lululemon doing their yoga classes, either somewhere on site -- anything that has the customer engagement, the way it's displayed that you feel special when you're in there is luxury tenants do so well. Anything that pulls the customer in and makes them stay as well.

Spencer Levy
One of the terms that we used to use Brian for why do people go to big box retailers is the treasure hunt. How important is that still to the retail experience?

Brian Harper
It's very important. I think someone coined it “surprise and delight” a few years ago. And the treasure hunts, when you look at especially the off price or the larger format, retailers every day is a new treasure hunt for the consumer. They're getting in goods mostly every day, and they want to be the first to get that deal, right? So I think having those treasure hunts is a great foundation for retail success, for those retailers.

Lisa Stoddard
One thing I would add is carefully curated stores. So my favorite gift shop in Washington, D.C., Dalton Brody, it’s a uniquely curated -- I can't get it online. I know I can go there and knock out gifts. It's one on one experience, and then it's gift wrap and send you out the door from soup to nuts, the customer experience.

Spencer Levy
We've talked a lot about different retail formats. And Lisa, you are an expert in all of them, as is Brian. And mixed use is becoming an increasingly important format where retail isn't just a retailer, but maybe the most important amenity for the other asset types, multifamily, office. How much has retail evolved to be an amenity to the others versus its own asset class?

Lisa Stoddard
It's an amenity to everything. Many times, retail will drive the value of what's above, sometimes even more so than on the ground level. It creates that special place, that special environment, especially as you look outside of the urban markets and suburban locations that have really become second cities in some cases to recreate that urban fabric with all those amenities. But more importantly, creating special places. And it's places that you and I want to be and go to. And that helps drive the overall mix.

Brian Harper
I think it's both now more than ever. I mean, first, it all comes down to the real estate and doing the void analysis of how do we achieve the best IRR for that asset or for that piece of real estate. A lot of times it will be retail, a lot of times will be both. We're doing a number of residential type deals with leading private owners or reeds where we'll ground lease or we’ll contribute our land and they'll build residential on vacant parcels or maybe a vacant box or two. So I think it's a definite amenity. And as you see here, even in New York, even the office world is seeing that as a way to drive their occupancy. I think two great examples would be Manhattan West by Brookfield and One Vanderbilt by SL Green. I mean, these are leaders of what they do in the office world, and they've built tremendous, tremendous assets that are very well leased. A lot of it was digitally enabled and forward leaning, and also just great amenities with retail on the base.

Spencer Levy
So let's stay with that for a moment, Brian. You mentioned that in many of your open air centers, you're looking to put additional uses on that land. Multifamily is one you mentioned. Maybe you're putting office. Is that a relatively new trend and do you see it continuing?

Brian Harper
I think it's kind of always been there. I think it's just heating up now, more across the country now, more than ever, obviously in certain parts of the country. The yields are more attractive for us to do it, but I do see this continuing and I see this continuing, too, with potentially lab science and data and biotech. And I think it's just going to be a blending of creating what's best for that piece of real estate. Some of that could be retail. Some of that could be office or lab science or residential. But I think the key thing is where retail experts, we're going to partner with residential experts or lab science or office, we're not going to do that ourselves. We're going to partner.

Spencer Levy
Brian just brought up, Lisa, about essentially the highest and best use of the real estate, whether it be retail, multifamily or otherwise. When you're looking at a typical open air center, you're looking at the tenant mix, and the tenant mix could be a combination of restaurants, apparel stores, other forms of retail. How are you looking at the highest and best use of the retail component taking experience into consideration?

Lisa Stoddard
Well, I think the experience -- probably the most overused word in our industry right now -- but it's so critical. And it starts with the project first creating a place that's a draw on itself that you want to be. That's what's getting people from out behind the computer. People want to be with people, so they want to be out and about and enjoy that environment, but it also goes into the retailer. Retail should be drama, theater, experience, engagement, all those things, but it starts with the outside first and then goes into the retail. So the merchandizing strategy is frankly so complicated in that you always have to merge what's on trend with what's the right fit for the project and the demographic and the sub market and all of those things coming together. And as we've counseled our clients not to react to short term trends either, but to look at a long term focus. And so in retail, when you look at some of the ones that have done a great job of creating theater, even starting back with Williams-Sonoma when they did their story, when it was such theater to go in there and enjoy and there's cooking demonstrations and engagement from a long time ago. And then there's people like Nike who started well before you get into the store, they're building that community with their fitness apps, they're running apps, they're building all of that engagement before you ever even get to the store.

Spencer Levy
One of the concepts we talk about from this theater or experience is the concept of credit versus cool. And credit is where everybody wants the highest credit tenants in the space. But you got to think about the foot traffic, the cool factor. Does that resonate with you, Brian? And how do you balance the two terms?

Brian Harper
There's an art, right? And it definitely resonates, just like you're really not going to have 100 percent of your cash flows coming from experiential or no credit tenants. I personally think it's that local experiential of that theater tenant that Lisa was talking about, which makes a lot of the center. So it's a balance of having the credit, and that could be your Whole Foods or TJ Max, but also 10 percent or 20 percent of your cash flows coming from that local or regional tenant that just knows that community very well. And it's just that special ingredient is that special topping that differentiates that center from the others. I mean, it's really our job as landlords. The tenants are artists, right? Our job is to bring the most amount of people to the venues. How do we do that? It's tenant mix. It's marketing events. It's engagement with the community and that local tenancy and that regional tenancy is a big make up of who we are.

Spencer Levy
Lisa, you're advising landlords every day on this very question, and I'm the first to admit I love restaurants and places to hang out. But this is not the slide. Our friends in the restaurant business are much tougher business than many other businesses we deal with, certainly from a credit in their durability and the ties you got to put in. So Lisa, given where we are today with the omni channel competition with the internet, has the percentage of experience inclusive of restaurants gone up. And do you think it will continue to go up or do you think you might see other uses that might be more traditional?

Lisa Stoddard
I think that restaurants won't go down. I think they're critical that the restaurant is part of a merchandizing strategy is critical, but we're looking for those COVID trends that are here to stay versus the short term, as we've talked about and the higher TI packages and even landlord packages have certainly soared during this time. I will say there wasn't such a huge hit on the rents as much as it was concessions. And we are past that point in most of our projects here. Certainly, the restaurant piece is working with the restaurants with proven track records, proven sales, and it's also landlords and tenants working together and looking at projected realistic sales volumes and occupancy cost and market rents all merged in there and working together. It's not just restaurants, though. There's entertainment type tenants that we're seeing a lot of many types of entertainment. You know, the golf concept, all kinds of activity, bowling, blah, blah blah. There's many different kinds, but the restaurants are key both on the office and in the retail part of the mix.

Spencer Levy
Well, it's interesting you mentioned bowling, Lisa, because I remember when I was a very young lawyer in this business, we used to have these restrictive covenants in our leases that would preclude things like bowling alleys, that preclude other things that were considered to be bad for the other tenants. So, Brian, to you, are we seeing less of those types of covenants today? Are we seeing more bowling alley and other types of uses that previously were shunned upon?

Brian Harper
It comes down to the center and it's very broad and the tighter parked areas that tenants will continue to dig their heels on them. For the larger centers where maybe a Lucky Strike or another bowling use could be taking out a Macy's or JC Penney. They'll be much more flexibility for that. It just comes down to the real estate and it comes down to the adjacency for the parking lot for the retailers.

Lisa Stoddard
It's all about parking too, and a lot of those concepts have shrunk in size, which helps on those issues merging with the anchor tenant restrictions.

Spencer Levy
Well, a lot of these concepts also have merged together. So bowling alleys were probably a disfavored use, in part because they had bars there in addition to just people bowling. But you go to a Dave and Buster's today, it's got a bar in addition to video games. So I think what you're seeing is mergers of uses to be able to combine maybe some elements that might have been disfavored before with the better elements that people want that create foot traffic.

Brian Harper
Yeah, that's well, I said. I mean, inside the four walls for the entertainment users has definitely changed. I mean, you look at even theaters now with -- movie theaters, with the restaurant components, that entertainment business has certainly changed dramatically.

Spencer Levy
So speaking of alternatives, the biggest alternative of course in retail is: do I do bricks and mortar or do I do internet. But really, I think what we're seeing now is the omni channel approach -- clicks to bricks and other things where people are coming back. In fact, there was an article in The Wall Street Journal 10 days ago that talked about the increasing importance of bricks and mortar to internet retailers. Lisa, you're nodding your head. You agree.

Lisa Stoddard
I do. I think someday that word even omni channel starts fading away. It's just part of being in retail. And so you look at the stores that opened bricks and mortar store, their online sales go up. It's all interchangeable. It's cheaper for retailers to shift from bricks and mortar. People want to be out in stores. They want all of it. It's satisfying the customer for multiple, multiple channels. But I think bricks and mortar does not go away. You look at our Black Friday sales and I think those numbers are going to go up because our season with so much longer, that was just the day. I don't think retail goes away. Foot traffic is up, not yet over 2019, but it's heading in the right direction.

Spencer Levy
The numbers for Black Friday and for the broader season are skewed this year for so many reasons. First of all, the year over year compared with 2020, but also it's the supply chain issue. There were a lot of big retailers this year who were not putting on sales or stocking their shelves quite as much as they've done in the past, simply because they couldn't get the goods. So Lisa, were you seeing that in some of your landlord tenants?

Lisa Stoddard
Definitely. Our poor retailers are just getting hammered from all different directions. But I do think the in-store profit probably increases because they're not having to do as many deep discounts. So a positive slant on that, too.

Brian Harper
And I think you can look at I saw Vici’s, they didn't get their supply and they're down 46 percent off of, you know, ordering their fall inventory. But then you look at Wal-Mart and Target and Costco, which I think are the three behemoths along with Amazon. And now like, we're going to be stocked frontwards and backwards, upwards and sideways throughout the holidays. So it goes back down to two like the balance sheets and the supply chains that, you know, tremendous retailers have been building up over the last several years.

Spencer Levy
Well, I think what happened during the crisis was that the traditional supply chains in many places broke, and now we're going to see, I think, even more of an expansion on the uses of traditional retail centers, such as hybridization of stores where it's retail on the front end, it's industrial in the back or having service components like a Best Buy as well. So Brian, are you seeing that in some of your stores where the retailers are trying to become more of a hybrid store?

Brian Harper
We're seeing some, but I think there we're seeing some before too. Again, if you look at the Best Buy's index of the world in some of these larger retailers, I think they were on to this. I mean, several years ago, pandemic forced that issue and accelerated that issue and really, really allowed every retailer to be better digital retailers. No one wished that the pandemic would have happened at all. But what it did for our world is allow for all retailers to really embrace and be digital retailers now that for some could be going from zero to 10 percent or from some going to 100 to one hundred and fifty percent. But so that's why we're seeing that with small, but we're seeing just a huge shift where the best buys and Dick's and even TJ's or Costco's or Home Depot's of just how important those stores are. Target is doing very little industrial leasing, but they're open to buy for stores is through the roof from their mouths. It's the largest it's ever been. Why? Obviously, their margins are much better if they can supply the customer in person, but they can supply the customer online as well from that store.

Spencer Levy
And I think the definition of what an online purchase is becoming gray. If we are going to continue to blur the lines of bricks and mortar, omnichannel or other things where it's not clear what's online or not, should we change the structure of leases? Because right now leases are: you’ve got your base rent, you've got your percentage rent, which is traditionally frowned upon, but then you've got internet sales in the trade area in which the sale occurs. So since I'm speaking to a leading landlord, Redfin, a leading landlord, should landlords get a piece of the sales on the internet? Yes. Lisa, what's your point of view?

Brian Harper
You know my answer. Yeah, I think I think it would be yes. And I think that's just the battle of. Immigration say the battle. It should be the partnership between landlord and the retailer and really defining it because it's outside the four walls now and really dividing that trade area in that sub market through zip codes. And it's a healthy conversation we're having with our retailer partners almost daily as we're re-engineering the leases in our tent corporate that. But in my mind, it's absolutely should be included.

Spencer Levy
Lisa?

Lisa Stoddard
Great. Everything, Brian said.

Spencer Levy
So let's turn now to formats. And Brian, you mentioned that most of your 70 percent plus or minus of your portfolio's grocery-anchored. But the other 30 percent are just large format centers that may not have a grocer in it. The grocery anchored stores are fantastic, and their pricing is better than pre-COVID in many levels for the best. The best centers But the area that has not fully recovered yet is the open air, not grocery anchored as you call them large format centers. Some people call them power centers. I'll go one step further. I believe it might be the best buy in all of real estate today, given the spread and the cap rates there versus other real estate options. Brian, what's your point of view? You know,

Brian Harper
I'm just a real estate person where I just think it all comes down to the real estate. And I think there tends to be in a lot of industries, a herd mentality. Today it's grosser in the retail world and we love grocery. It's got to be the right grocery. As we all know, there's great grocery centers and there's poor grocery centers. It's picking the right one and with the right market, dominant grocer. With that said, I do agree with you. We like to say, you know, maybe we can. I'm working through copywriting, so maybe I can call this yet. But I'll say it anyway is credit centers and set up power centers. You look at the cash flows of your team and the credit profiles of TJX and Dick's and Home Depot and Lowe's. And you look at the credit on the rent roll from those tenants and you compare the cap rates compared to their corporate bonds and where they're trading at. It's a massive, massive yield and there's great arbitrage to be had there. With that said, there's great credit centers and there's poor credit centers. It's having that right center with the right demographics, with the right sales coming from those tenants. We're adding on a lot of grocery to these centers to that everyday use a lot. I mean, I would say the majority of our leasing large box centers, anything over 25000 square feet is coming from grocery, wholesale and home improvement. They're going into a lot of these power centers. So what does that do for cap rate, right? So I think there's huge, huge, huge opportunity in that sector. We did $500 million of buys in the last several months, and a couple of them are truly just power centers that we believe we can add new tenants or we like that tendency in place now and just got it at a very attractive yield. So we're fans, it's just got to be the right real estate with the right tenancy.

Spencer Levy
So let's touch upon a couple of other hot topics that have been in our industry for the last several months. One of them is COVID related and I know it's new, but the Omicron variant has been top of the headlines. Anything you're hearing from landlords or tenants on that, Lisa?

Lisa Stoddard
Not yet.

Spencer Levy
Brian?

Brian Harper
Yeah, too new. No, nothing that's off yet.

Spencer Levy
Well, I just got back from Europe, and one thing I heard in every meeting I went to -- much louder than I'm hearing here -- is ESG, which used to be primarily an office thing. It was primarily required in office buildings. They're saying, no, it's in everything that we want. All of our real estate, industrial, retail hotels, otherwise to be at the top of the line for that. So Lisa, what are you? What are you hearing from your clients?

Lisa Stoddard
Yeah, I think we'll see more of that. I mean, ESG is so many different things, right? It's sustainability and social. Well, it's causes. It's all kinds of things. I think the one thing that I've seen especially started during COVID is that those things have to be authentic and real and not a marketing ploy. That is one thing that rang loud and clear from the retailer's standpoint. I'm amazed. My daughter is a Gen Z, 24 years old. And when I ask her about cool brands, it starts with the cool things they do as a company, her and her friends. They expect this. They also I will watch that age group, they will also blast people on social media when they're not doing it. I hope it's a way that we all end up doing business and just like omni channel, maybe as she is and isn't such a thing that it's something we're doing always as a matter, of course, in business. But I think many retailers are doing a phenomenal job, whether it's recycling causes really meaningful and I totally applaud them.

Spencer Levy
So Brian, pushing the ESG question. I was at a grocery anchored center over the weekend and I saw for the first time to EV charging stations right next to the store. So we'd love to hear what you're doing on ESG and specifically on EV charging stations, solar panels or otherwise.

Brian Harper
Yeah, ESG, I think there'll be more advancement. It'll be more of the norm a year or two years from now, even than not when I first came to the company in 2018. It wasn't a focus and we brought it to the forefront. You're right, when you go to Europe, it's really one of the first questions you’re asked. And I think here it's becoming one of the first or second questions people ask, including, you know, thankful to the likes of BlackRock and Larry Fink of what he did to really bring it on the forefront for public and private companies. So from that perspective, that ranges from a lot, from investments on global warming to reducing carbon footprints in our proprietary model. We actually impact the score based on if that municipality is in the global warming zones or flooding zones or all of that right. I can go on and on from environmental, but it's going to dramatically improve our communities. So I think that's a win-win. I think the S is something that the world us has been doing for a while, and that's just a focus on diversity. It's becoming much more now, the wellness of the employees and really philanthropic of how we give back to the world and to our communities. And then the governance is really strong governance for our shareholders, and that's internal. That's external. That's what boards all that. But ESG is is massive and is only going to increase literally by every day. As far as EV we are doing a number of deals with like Teslas of the world. And you see in this infrastructure bill, there's going to be credits now for consumers buying EV cars. I think this is going to be one of the main headlines for our industry for years to come.

Lisa Stoddard
So I bought an electric car a few months ago, so I've done the up and down 95 to Connecticut and back a little bit. And the thing one, how great making it easier, they're becoming more and more. There aren't as many as we'd all like to see still, but for shopping center owners to help the community to have that available. But also it's a captive audience for 30 to 40 minutes just for landlords to take advantage of that. And the amenities are making it easy. I haven't seen an advertisement yet. I'm sure it's coming at the stations of what's available right by me. I've got 30-40 minutes and things you can knock out, so I think it's an opportunity for landlords as well.

Spencer Levy
Let's go back to the same thing for just a moment. I think you said it correctly, Brian. Much of the S that we are seeing in our industry is primarily being dealt with from a hiring practice standpoint, diversity and otherwise. What we're not seeing as much in our industry is people going one step out on the risk spectrum to putting a grocery store in what's known as a food wasteland? We actually had on this show a few months ago, we had a long debate about that, about why don't you put that grocery store there? And their answer was, we need to get the same return on investment on an ESG dollar as we do on a capital expense of any other type. And I guess my question is, do we see the world ever changing there? Do we see it through public private partnerships, tax incentives or otherwise that large institutional investors can invest in some of these areas that are emerging today, maybe outside the scope of their investment profile? Brian, your point of view on that?

Brian Harper
Yeah, I think it's important we have shareholders and our job is to steward their dollars. And while stewarding into an area like that is important and very important, having that rate of return on investment is as important as well. Now there are cities that could create tiffs where you would be able to have that same yield or higher. So I think that those public private partnerships are really important. And to be true partners with that municipality and to bring. Infrastructure to bring a lot of employment to neglected areas, there's a lot of people that are doing a lot of work in that field and they're doing an exceptional job.

Spencer Levy
And just for our listeners sake, TIFF stands for tax incremental financing, which essentially is a deal that the local municipality will have with the developer that if they build in a certain place, they'll get a tax break for a certain period of time in exchange for doing it. Sometimes those tax credits can be sold as a real currency for their job.

Brian Harper
Spence real fast before a feel good story is I sit on a board actually chair. The Board of autism speaks and I had the pleasure to meet with this coffee shop owner that's very thriving in Paris. And they have neurodiverse employees and they're just crushing it to the point where they can't find enough labor. They can't find enough. Real estate office owners in Europe are leasing them the space free and that they're coming into New York and are undergoing a deal in Times Square and throughout the city where that's the summit's finest right? Because it's an ecosystem of applying philanthropic, applying job opportunities to the neurodiverse community that maybe wouldn't be working, and it's supplying to that ecosystem where the patrons, it's their favorite place to go. And I think that's the thing of ESG is it can be it can be very large obstacle to to embrace, if you will, but it's a beautiful to embrace and doing it right. It just it just absolutely makes the businesses better, makes the organizations better, makes the employees better, makes the communities that

Spencer Levy
Brian as the CEO of one of the largest owners of open air retail in the United States. The space has always been evolving. Put on your crystal ball hat or put your crystal ball in front of you and say five years from now. Looking back, what are the big changes you think you're going to see in retail? And what are some of the things you think will stay the same?

Brian Harper
I think as we've talked about a lot on the omni channel, I think that word goes away and that just part of retail, it's going to be a hybrid of digital and bricks and mortar. I think the larger retailers will continue to get larger and there'll be more consolidation. But I think as we've seen the acceleration post COVID, it forced everybody to be better digital retailers. And I think that it's just going to tend to increase. And I think five years from now, people will look at us and say we're almost more of a blend of industrial to retail than digital to retail because the retail storefronts serving us that true last mile.

Lisa Stoddard
Yeah, I think the future is bright and we're well on the road to recovery. All the metrics are there. That sure feels good to read and see and watch. I said earlier about the omni channel, I think it's just going to be more the same, but by the vast majority will still be in store sales. But the lines will be even more blurred. I think there will be some repurposing of retail. I think, as Brian said, everybody got better during COVID, not a not a lesson we wanted to learn, but everyone got better at what they do. They had to. And I think part of it was we've kind of kicked the can down the road on some projects that maybe shouldn't have been retail or less retail. I think there's going to be some repurposing of that that will be well received in the market, whether it's residential office in the projects that weren't that, it's harder than it seems. But I think we'll see more of that as well.

Spencer Levy
Great. Well, thank you. Lisa. Thank you, Brian. And on behalf of The Weekly Take, it was my pleasure to have two of the leading experts in retail in the world, frankly. Brian Harper, president and CEO of RPT Realty, one of the leading owners of open air retail in the United States. Brian, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Brian Harper
Thank you, Spencer. Thanks, Lisa. Enjoyed it.

Spencer Levy
And Lisa, my good friend, executive vice president, one of the leading landlord brokers in retail in the Greater Washington, DC area. Lisa, thank you for joining the show.

Lisa Stoddard
Thank you, Spencer and Brian. Such a pleasure.

Spencer Levy
For more information on the retail sector, please visit our website at CBRE.com/TheWeeklyTake. You can also browse the aisles of CBRE Research for the latest insights on all the angles we've covered. The latest is CBRE’s newly published Viewpoint on reverse logistics, the supply chain for returns. That's because this year's strong holiday shopping season is sure to put that part of our industrial infrastructure to work. You can also find our recent brief on 2021 Holiday Shopping Trends and, hot off the presses this week, our real estate outlook for 2022 and more. All that research and analysis is available at CBRE.com/Insights. And speaking of the New Year, our 2021 programming year is drawing to a close, but we will be here as usual next week to celebrate with a retrospective and look ahead. In the meantime, thank you for listening. As always, we appreciate it. If you'd share the show and subscribe rate and review us wherever you listen. Thanks again for joining us. I'm Spencer Levy. Be smart. Be safe. Be well.