What are some retail trends that may not be so obvious today? Why should you add a retail component to a multi-family project? How can you host a successful pop-up in your center? Edie Weintraub, the Founder and Managing Director of Terra Alma, shares her insights.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I've been in commercial real estate for 20 years and started in the industry. My husband was in consulting, so I had the opportunity to travel on the weekends, and that's when everybody wanted to see houses. I quickly stalked companies and explored industrial, office, and retail until I found that retail was a great fit for me. Having been in the background of promotions, nightclubs, and restaurants, I was able to pull in the relationships from those industries into the work I get to do daily. My team and I focus on restaurants and local retailers and position them for growth in the market. Then, conversely, we work on behalf of local owners and property owners who want to shape their communities, preferably downtown walkable communities or even master-planned communities that lean into incremental retail.
We all know that retail is changing. It's a lot more service-oriented today, and it will be even more moving forward as people want to buy things online. I don't want to buy my shoes at the store because they don't have the selection, and I don't want to try all of them at the store and have the guy go and come back with the shoes. It's a trend that I think commerce is not going to be there when you work with owners. How do you help them have a diverse amount of service providers so that they will all work with each other well in terms of what they provide so they are all thriving in that center?
We evaluate the local community and understand what's missing. If there's already an Italian restaurant in the market, we don't want to step on anybody's toes. The worst thing to have is a new shopping center or a new downtown walkable community, and immediately the first thing that pops up is a duplication of what's already there. We take the time to get to know what the community is asking for, attend local meetings, and talk about economic development. It is common for us to stop people on the street and say, "Hey, we're going to be working on a project that's coming up, and we want your input" because the more the community feels like they are part of the process, the more they're going to welcome the project with open arms. We've had conversations on behalf of multi-family developers to say, "Let us go and work for the community early," because if we can do an activation, a pop-up, or a farmers market on the site before you build, chances are we can get goodwill from the community. They will be excited for us to potentially capture some of those vendors from the farmers market and put them in a permanent space. There's nothing worse than someone coming in from outside and saying, "My Italian is better than your Italian," and that's not a good way to garner goodwill when you're coming into a new community.
That is so brilliant about the pop-ups. Can you elaborate on how they work because sometimes water is involved and all of that? Which effort would it take from the owner of the property for these popups?
It depends on how much time we have because, at the very beginning, you've probably got a property under contract, and you need to go through the approval process. We're working with the current owner of the property and not our future client, who's going through the approval process. It is up to the current owner if they are receptive to dealing with us and letting us activate it so that there is positive momentum. It could be something as easy as a shipping container park. It could be a food truck park and those investments are picnic tables. Maybe there's existing space on the property that we can leverage bathrooms for, or it just might be a farmers market where we're not necessarily providing bathrooms but just creating a gathering space that people can come to. You can activate it on something as small as half an acre or an acre, but it just depends on what that timeline is.
A lot of the folks that we work with on the multi-family side and who we advise on the retail component are leaning in the direction of having anywhere from 12 to 25,000 square feet of retail space, and that's a good critical mass. We're going to assess what else is in the community and hopefully be able to leverage and be respectful of what's there. But if we're coming in and there's nothing around us within a 10-minute drive, 25,000 is that magic number that we would like to see in terms of a retail component. A lot of times, multi-family developers are pushed to do retail, and they don't want to, they don't get it. It really should be an amenity, just like the fitness studio, just like the pool, just like any walking trails around it, because if you have the right retailer or cafe at the base of your apartment building, those tenants upstairs have an opportunity to make a friend, maybe a future spouse or partner or business relationship. They're more likely to stay a second year and a third year, and you don't have to start all over and try to find a new resident because you've created a sense of place, a sense of community, and it's a much nicer place to be in.
In terms of the pop-up, I recall from our conversations that you also helped a lot with getting the word out, throwing the events, and getting musicians there. What can people do today to get the word out about their pop-ups to the community?
We had an opportunity to consult on an existing space that was vacant retail at the base of an apartment building. What we did is we brought in a couple of groups that do small artist markets and anywhere from six to eight art vendors. It could be jewelry or ceramic mugs, really just an opportunity for an existing apartment that's already open with residents in it to come down and enjoy, like a community gathering opportunity, where residents have an opportunity to meet one another. A lot of people who are working from home are moving to other parts of the country that maybe are a little bit more affordable, but because they're working from home, they don't have a ton of opportunities to socialize and get to know their new community. And so, having community managers in the apartment buildings can create space and offer these folks a means to get to know one another again. You meet a neighbor, you make a friend, and you're more likely to stay a second year and a third year, and so we've been able to work with a lot of these apartment owners and their community managers to create these events. Maybe we're working with a local restaurant group and bringing them in to get them some more exposure or letting them know, "Hey, we do take out, or we do delivery, and you should try this amazing Mediterranean restaurant that's right down the street."
But again, sometimes people get in their little bubble, and they don't know all the things that are around them. So we've been able to do little walking tour maps. We've done little artist markets that bring people in, a wine tasting or a mocktail class, just things to help educate, but also to encourage people to gather. You were just remarking about retail online and not wanting to go to the store, but there are certain activities that I think do truly bring people together, like doing an art project together, painting or doing a cooking class together, education opportunities, and also shared experiences. Those are important avenues to create a sense of belonging and community to help people realize that they're not alone. Sadly, the Surgeon General's warning said that we are the most lonely we have been in our entire existence and I think, while I love my phone and all the technology that is in my pocket, we need more of this.
In terms of retail, what are some trends that are happening today that maybe not everybody may know?
I'm trying to encourage them to be as small as possible because the smaller you are, the sooner your cash flow, the sooner we can contemplate number two or number three or another state. That's where I've been pushing people to go. If you walk down anywhere internationally when you travel, the best little shops are like little holes in the walls where you just meander into them. It's not a Walmart; it's not a Target where you've got all this massive, basically warehousing space. That's not where people are encouraged to be curious. They're encouraged to be curious if there's a small space, and it's thoughtfully merchandised, and you just find the cutest little notebook or the most amazing fountain pen or something like, "Oh, wow. I really would have never thought of this, but now that I'm here having this experience. I am going to invest in a fountain pen versus disposable pens."
What are some of those things regarding your job in particular that make you different than others?
I do have people who do what I do, but they don't do it how I do it because we end up working with a lot of emerging brands, women, and minority-owned brands. We take over their PR and get their name out in the media. When they engage with us, we get them in the headlines. Our external PR team interviews them about where they're looking to grow, and why they're looking to grow, and we get the little tagline at the bottom that says, "If you're interested in learning more, contact Edie and her team." I think what that does is it allows us to help them get exposure. I had a client of ours who I got a position to speak at a conference, and I said, "Oh, well, I want you to come and be on my panel." And a woman after the conference comes up to me. She goes, "Edie, I hear you're the conference whisperer." I said, "Okay, sure, I'll take that." But really, it's just about our clients having exposure, and oftentimes they're so busy in their business that they're not able to work on their business. We're not only helping them with the business that they have and helping them grow it, but we also help if they need investors or we create brand books for our clients.
We want that story to be told because, sadly, all too often, there are landlords who might not be local, and so we don't get a chance to meet them in person and truly understand the connection between the tenant and the landlord. So, we put together a brand book with pictures of the intended space. It's got the bio of the owner or operator of the restaurant or shop. It's got pictures of them doing work, and it has items on the menu and describes those items on the menu. This allows you to understand who is going to be the tenant in your space. And I think because we make their lives easier if they have to go report back as a landlord to investors or real estate committee, they're just handing this over, and we make their lives so much easier. For me, I just want to get as close to yes as possible. The sooner I could get to yes, the happier everyone is.
You also work with the landlords, as well and you help them fill their centers. Can you talk a little bit about that for our operators or our investors?
When we work on behalf of either real estate developers, multi-family owners, or office owners, I have no problem doing a deal with Chipotle and Starbucks, but most of the properties we work on are local, walkable communities, and they don't need to. Chipotle and Starbucks don't want to be in these communities because it just doesn't have the reach unless they've already grown so much, and they're ready for this opportunity. Most of the local owners that we work with are here in Georgia or in their respective markets, and they truly want to understand and put into business folks that are speaking to the community. The reach of a local restaurant tour, when you walk in there, and you see their kid in the back rolling silverware, and you can understand where you as a consumer, perhaps, or even as a landlord, where those dollars in the local community are being spent. They're going back into those local mom-and-pop businesses. There's a gentleman on Twitter who only buys on Anchorage strip centers, and he said, "My favorite tenants are the hair salon, the barber shop, the nail salon, the local restaurant, the dentist because they're truly taking care of the local community." What you saw, I think, post-pandemic, is that the businesses that survived were the ones that the local community cared for and took care of. I think there's a special place, and those are the types of owners that my team and I enjoy working with.
Is there anything else about retail, from an investor and operator's perspective, that you think would be important for our audience to know?
Don't give up on us. Things always change, but for me, in working with master plans, communities, landscape architects, and urban planners, when they draw in retail, it's always in red, which means to me that retail is the heart of every community, and it brings everyone together. I wish that bankers and lenders didn't forecast how we needed to develop across the US because we don't need a medical campus here, an industrial area, an office, or a residential area over here. Not saying I want industrial right next to residential, but there are some of those assets that work well together in the right setting. Retail, office, mixed-use, and entertainment: the more that we come together, the more that we can grow and improve.
I lived in a high-rise before, and when you have that place where all the neighbors can gather and meet each other, you do end up staying longer because of the friends that you made and potential partners. You are 100% correct and hopefully, we can change the trend with the bankers and multi-family developers so that they understand it better.
Edie Weintraub
www.terraalma.com
https://podcasts.apple.com/hustle-and-heart-conversations-with-culture-creators