Retail developers keep sense of humor about economy

by Rachel Tobin Ramos
AJC.com

A convention for shopping center developers was a mixture of gallows humor, cautious optimism and announcements of retailers coming soon (really).

The International Council of Shopping Centers Southeast Conference on Monday convened some of the industry’s top local experts to discuss where retail development is going.

“What an exciting time to be in the business,” Atlanta’s Jeff Fuqua, president of St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Sembler, told a session called “Not your daddy’s strip mall.”

“Except for the collapse in our capital markets and … leasing …, we’re pretty much unaffected,” he said.

Dark humor aside, developers and retail brokers showed that while the slow economy is making retailers more cautious, their business hasn’t come to a standstill.

Fuqua discussed progress on The Prado, a Sandy Springs strip mall that Sembler bought in 2006, and is turning into a 345,000 square foot multi-level mall with a Target, Publix, Circuit City, Staples, and Home Depot. The Target will open Tuesday, and other retailers will open now through March.

Other Sembler projects still underway in Atlanta include Town: Brookhaven and Westside Crossing at 14th and Northside, which will have a CVS.

Still, Fuqua said privately that some of the company’s developments will not come out of the ground as fast as first announced, mostly because retailers are moving slower. “Lending is the least of our trouble,” he said, when asked about the credit crunch. “Slow moving retailers are a bigger deal.”

Ray Uttenhove, a tenant representative and managing principal of Staubach’s Atlanta office, agreed. “It can be very frustrating for developers. The process is so elongated [for retailers to commit] which sometimes results in paralysis, which we all hate.”

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