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Latest Shopping Trends across Asia Pacific: CBRE

Emerging markets are offering interesting investment opportunities in terms of shopping center development, according to the latest Asia Pacific Retail Trends and Retail Hotspots reports released by CBRE. The Asia Pacific market in particular continued to see a steady flow of new retailer openings in 2013, amid steady economic growth and generally positive consumer sentiment.

Southeast Asia, in particular, continued to mature rapidly with the completion of new retail space and increasingly sophisticated consumers, which spurred the arrival of new retailers from overseas.The top five countries of retailer origin, however, remained unchanged over last year. New retailers from the Americas remained the most active, with 71 new entries across Asia Pacific in 2013. Retailers from Italy (47), the United Kingdom (40), France (37) and Japan (24) completed the top five.

While Hanoi recorded the highest number of new entrants (30) of any city in Asia Pacific in 2013, Hong Kong (28) came a close second, followed by Beijing (27), Shanghai (26) and Singapore (25). In India, demand from international retailers in New Delhi (16) remained more-or-less stable over last year, as more groups sought space in prime shopping centers as opposed to high street shops.Despite the prevailing high rentals in the prime shopping locations of many established Asian cities, leasing demand for space in these prime spots remained strong throughout the year.

Not prohibitive rentals, but the limited availability of quality retail space in core locations would seem to have continued to pose a greater barrier to new retailer entry in a number of key emerging Asian marketsincluding New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.Demand from international retailers in Mumbai and New Delhi remained stable during the year, with interest from fast fashion groups in particular remaining firm throughout 2013.Recent quarters also saw a number of well-established international mass market brands enter tier-II locations, partly because of the lack of quality space options in tier-I markets.

Wal-Mart India appoints Krish Iyer as CEO

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc announced that Krish Iyer has been named president and CEO of Walmart India, effective Jan. 20, 2014. Iyer, who will report to Walmart Asia regional president and CEO Scott Price, will replace interim CEO Ramnik Narsey, who is taking a new role as senior vice president, Walmart International. Ramnik will report to David Cheesewright, the incoming President and Chief Executive Officer for Walmart International.

Scott Price, president and CEO of Walmart Asia said: Krish will be responsible for leading the growth and success of our India operations while also continuing to develop our future retail strategy there. His knowledge of our business, combined with his understanding of the Indian market and culture, make him a natural fit for this role. I would like to personally appreciate Ramnik and acknowledge his leadership of our India business as we worked to develop our current business plan.

Originally from Mumbai, India, Iyer joined Walmart International as a senior vice president in 2012. Prior to coming to Walmart, he spent six years with A.S. Watson Group, a leading international health, beauty and lifestyle retailer, serving as managing director in Thailand, Taiwan and the Philippines, regional business development director and regional director over store design and development for Asia and Eastern Europe. Before that, Iyer was managing director and CEO at Piramyd Retail Limited. Iyer is a Chartered Accountant, having received his Bachelors degree with honors in Commerce and Economics from the University of Mumbai in India.

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Retail Newsletter â December 09 to 13, 2013

Published on December 13, 2013 Optimism shaping up for 2014 retail activity

TRURO Things are shaping up for 2014 as far as the retail situation is concerned at the Truro Mall, an official says.

The former Zellers store in the Truro Mall is being renovated to accommodate multiple businesses, including an international fashion retailer that is expected to open in late 2014. HARRY SULLIVAN TRURO DAILY NEWS

Its always hard and its not always healthy to have 100 per cent occupancy, because it makes it difficult to expand and relocate tenants and get creative, said mall manager Donald Burton. But we expect to have a very healthy occupancy rate for 2014, he added.

Construction has begun in the section of the mall formerly occupied by Zellers to subdivide the area for at least a couple of new tenants.

Unfortunately were not able to make an announcement at this time, Burton said, of one of the primary tenants who will leasing within that section of the mall. But he did say the tenant will be an international fashion retailer that already has multiple locations in Atlantic Canada.

It will be a fall 2014 opening, for that business, Burton said.

As well, Mobile Snap, which markets cellphone accessories, recently opened a kiosk in the mall in time for holiday shopping and Burton has previously announced that Sally Beauty Supply and Wireless Wave are also currently under construction.

Wireless Wave could be open as early as this weekend while Sally Beauty Supply will also be opening in the short term as well, he said.

Also in recent months, Christmas Discounters and Pearl & Daisy opened retail locations in the mall.

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Construction underway to fill space vacated by Zellers at Truro Mall

Construction is slated to start in April on One Seaport Square, a $600 million pair of 22-story towers with 832 apartments above 260,000 square feet of retail space in South Bostons Seaport District.

Bostons Berkshire Group, a multifamily-housing investor and manager, spent $72 million to buy three acres along Seaport Boulevard from Seaport Square master developers Boston Global Investors and Morgan Stanley.

The luxury apartment project will include some smaller, less expensive innovation apartments that share common areas.

Its a fantastic location in what we believe is the best part of the Seaport, which we believe is the most exciting part of Boston development right now, Berkshire Group senior partner Steve Wood said.

Seaport Square will encompass 6.3 million square feet of mixed-use projects on 23 acres. Boston Global Investors will be a limited partner in One Seaport Squares residential component. Its a big deal for us, CEO John B. Hynes III said. (One Seaport Square is) the biggest project in the Seaport Square portfolio at 1.1 million square feet.

Chestnut Hills WS Development, whose retail centers include Dedhams Legacy Place and Hinghams Derby Street Shoppes, has an option to buy One Seaport Squares retail component three stories in each of the two towers which it will manage. Its among Seaport Squares 1.3 million square feet of total retail space, which will rival that of the best shopping destinations in the metro-Boston area, according to WS Development senior vice president Michael McNaughton.

We are entertaining all retail, dining and entertainment options, he said.

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Land in hand, Berkshire Group sets course for One Seaport Square

Wednesday, December 11, 2013, 11:41am

Rockland Trust has provided $5.8 million in financing to Coggeshall LLC and Riverside LLC for two construction projects at Riverside Landing in New Bedford.

Rockland Trust provided a $2.5 million construction loan to Riverside LLC for an 11,806-square-foot retail building at Riverside Landing, a 17-acre retail and mixed-use development. The retail space will house Great Clips Salon, Dr. Dental, Little Caesars, Verizon Wireless and Capriotti's Sandwich Shop.

The bank also provided $3.3 million in financing to Coggeshall LLC for St. Anne's Hospital's Urgent Care Center, which recently broke ground on the same site. The new 10,000-square-foot ambulatory care facility is scheduled to open in the fall of 2014. It will provide walk-in outpatient treatment for non-life-threatening illness or injuries when a patient's primary care physician is not available or emergency room care is not required.

The financing is funded through the bank's New Markets Tax Credit program, which promotes job creation and economic redevelopment in economically challenged communities throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

The projects are a joint venture between Mark Dickinson of Quincy-based Dickinson Development Corp. and Mark White of Acushnet-based D.W. Construction Inc.

Riverside Landing is the site of the former Fairhaven Mills in New Bedford, which operated from the early 1900s into the 1980s, and was abandoned for nearly three decades. A Market Basket Supermarket and a Taco Bell that opened earlier this year are currently located at the site.

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Rockland Trust Finances Construction Of Retail, Medical Space In New Bedford

Thursday, December 12, 2013, 11:21am

By James Cronin

Banker & Tradesman Staff Writer

A joint venture led by Boston-based Berkshire Group plans to start construction on two 22-story towers with apartments and retail space in Boston's Seaport District in April.

The multifamily investor and developer paid $72 million to Seaport Square master developers Morgan Stanley and Boston Global Investors (BGI) for the Seaport Boulevard parcel.

The $600 million towers called One Seaport Square will include 832 luxury apartments above 260,000 square feet of retail space.

The new ownership group led by Berkshire includes BGI, the master developer of Seaport Square, which will own and develop the residential component of the project. WS Development will develop, own and manage the retail component of One Seaport Square.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority board of directors recently gave final approvals for the project. The project is slated to be completed in 2016.

"One Seaport Square will be our largest project in Boston and it is the keystone project for the Innovation District," John Hynes, BGI CEO and managing partner, said in a statement.

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22-Story Residential Towers Slated For Seaport Boston

By Matt Rocheleau, Boston.com Staff

Officials plan to break ground this week on a $150 million mixed-used development in Allston.

The 350,000 square-foot project calls for 325 apartments, up to 45,000 square feet of retail space, a parking garage with space for up to 225 cars, residential amenities, and outdoor space to be built at the intersection of Western Avenue and North Harvard Street.

Parts of the development will stand between six and nine stories tall. The company leading the project, Samuels and Associates, expects to finish construction by fall 2015.

A groundbreaking ceremony Friday afternoon will bring together development and leaders from the city of Boston and Harvard University, which owns the property abutting its business school campus and is planning a series of projects for the neighborhood over the next 10 years.

The development, Barrys Corner Retail and Residential Commons, has been named after the intersection where it will be built.

Meanwhile, a group of residents recently launched a public campaign to have the intersections name changed from Barrys Corner to Allston Square.

Through an online neighborhood discussion forum, leaders of a group, called the Allston Square Association, sent messages recently proposing the name change and announced they are trying to gather signatures on a petition supporting their effort.

We would very much like to have you sign the petition to name this new retail and residential commons Allston Square after the great painter Washington Allston, who gave our community its name instead of Barrys Corner named after no one, the group said in an online message.

However, to honor the good folks who lost their homes 45 years ago when the BRA and the City bulldozed their little community and built the Charlesview Apartments, we would like to name the Grove, which stands on the very spot where their homes once stood, Barrys Corner Memorial Grove, in their memory, the message added.

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Developer to break ground on $150m mixed-use development in Allston

A local developer is taking steps to build an outlet mall in South Anchorage.

On a 27-acre swath of wetlands southwest of the intersection at 100th Avenue and C Street, the developer, JL Properties, is angling to provide 200,000 square feet of retail space for dozens of outlet shops.

The company originally bought the land last spring. From there, the question was what to do with it, said Leonard Hyde, one of the principals of JL Properties.

With little experience in the outlet business, the company looked to a group called Outlets of the Pacific, Hyde said. The group had been working to bring an outlet mall to Anchorage for several years, he said, but a large, well placed plot of land had failed to surface.

"It struck us that this one could be a possibility," Hyde said.

The location is across from Target and the Cabela's store now under construction.

The first phase of the development is estimated to cost about $70 million, Hyde said. The company is still weighing whether to commit to building an additional 200,000 square feet of space, which would be carried out in two phases.

Hyde did not say which name brands may be included in the mall. But he said the retail landscape will "look very similar to the new outlets you're seeing around the country."

Construction is scheduled to start next summer, headed toward an opening date of Oct. 1, 2015, Hyde said.

Anchorage has long awaited its first outlet mall. The malls are popular across the country for their big discounts on overstocked or undersold goods from the nation's largest retail chains.

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Outlet mall with dozens of shops proposed for South Anchorage

Retail real estate brokers and leasing agents including representatives of the American Dream project in the Meadowlands sounded optimistic about filling empty and prospective store spaces Monday as the industry gathered in New York City for an annual deal-making conference.

Brokers said they are seeing pre-recession levels of leasing activity, and developers of North Jersey properties said they are encouraged by the amount of interest they are seeing in their available retail spaces.

Things are certainly better than they were a few years ago, said George Jacobs, president of development firm Jacobs Enterprises of Clifton. Jacobs said the firms Clifton and Ridgewood retail properties are 100 percent leased and he is seeing strong interest in new urban mixed use developments in Newark and Bloomfield. The firm and its partners broke ground on a retail and residential project in Bloomfield on Monday.

Jacobs and more than 7,500 retail real estate professionals gathered at the Hilton New York hotel Monday for the two-day conference hosted by the International Council of Shopping Centers. Attendance at the conference increased about 15 percent this year compared to 2012.

One of the rare mega malls currently under way, the American Dream projects agents were at the conference to meet with prospective tenants. The projects leasing team had a meeting room in an adjacent hotel and were conducting meetings throughout the day Monday.

Don Ghermezian, president of Triple Five, the developer of American Dream, said during a break in meetings that the mall is attracting a lot of leasing interest, although the company is not yet able to announce tenants. We have eight or nine leasing agents talking to us right now he said, gesturing toward the crowded meeting room.

Michael Kercheval, president and chief executive of the shopping center council said attendance at the New York conference usually is a barometer for the health of the retail real estate industry. The 15 percent increase in attendance this year bodes very well for our industry in 2014, he said.

Chuck Lanyard, president of The Goldstein Group, a retail brokerage firm in Paramus, said he uses a different measure to gauge the industrys robustness - how crowded the aisles are at the conference. If at 12 noon the aisles are too crowded to walk through, thats a good sign, and they were, Lanyard said.

In addition to being more crowded than last year, the mood at the conference is more upbeat, Lanyard said, with deals being done.

Most of the deals being negotiated at the conference involve repositioned properties rather than new developments.

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Retail representatives, inluding American Dream's builder, are optomistic on filling space

The new owners of the former Christian Science Reading Room building in downtown Buffalo have begun work to convert the historic three-story structure into a mixture of residential, office and retail space to add to the redevelopment of the 500 block of Main Street.

Peter and Rebecca McCauley will spend more than $600,000 on the renovation of 483 Main St., at Mohawk Street, after acquiring the 6,200-square-foot building located near the new headquarters of the Martin Group advertising and marketing firm, and architectural firm Carmina Wood Morris for $230,000.

Plans call for a luxury apartment on the third floor, with access to an outdoor living space on the building's flat roof. The second floor will be a combination of residential and office space, and the first floor will have a boutique retail shop. Workers from Lehigh Construction already began asbestos abatement and deconstruction on the interior, and the building should be ready for its first tenants by June 1, Rebecca McCauley said. The property, formerly called the Hudson Building after the original architects, Hudson & Hudson, is part of the 500 Block local historical preservation district, so the McCauleys have applied for state and national historic tax credits. This is the first such project for the couple, both Amherst natives who moved from the area when they married but later returned. Rebecca McCauley, 50, is an attorney and federal court clerk in Buffalo, while her 51-year-old husband is the president of Orchard Park-based manufacturer McGard LLC, started by his father nearly 50 years ago.

The couple live on a working farm in Orchard Park. I've been anxious to get involved in the rebirth of the City of Buffalo for several years, Rebecca MaCauley said. They bid unsuccessfully in 2005 on a building adjacent to the new Zeptometrix headquarters on Main Street.

We stumbled upon this building early last spring and just were delighted that we could be a part of the rebirth of the city, she said. It's just such a wonderfully exciting time.

She said they want to use the project to give work opportunities to up-and-coming young and returning professionals. For example, her marketing plan was developed by a woman who is trying to return to the marketing world after taking time off to raise a family much like Rebecca McCauley returned to law school after raising her own family while the build-out of the second and third floors is being created by a pair of young designers who are finishing up their master's degrees.

email: jepstein@buffnews.com

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New owners are thrilled to restore 438 Main St. in Buffalo

By: Krista Angela M. Montealegre, InterAksyon.com December 12, 2013 12:43 PM

Japan's Uniqlo is one of the foreign brands that set up shop in the Philippines through a partnership with the SM group.

InterAksyon.com means BUSINESS

MANILA Foreign brands are flooding the Philippine retail market this holiday season to capitalize on higher consumer spending in one of Asia's fastest-growing economies, according to a property consultancy firm.

In a report, CBRE Philippines said 13 international retailers opened shop in the country in the third quarter.

"With elevated consumption spending, business partnerships between foreign brands and local entrepreneurs are expected to yield profitable returns," CBRE said.

The Philippines economy has grown at a record pace of 7.4 percent in the first nine months of the year. Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of the economy.

"Local retail businesses anticipate upbeat sales while European companies see the potential in the local retail market. This in turn has put pressure on mall operators to expedite the completion of construction works before the start of the Christmas season shopping," CBRE said.

FamilyMart, a joint venture between Japanese firm Itochu and SIAL CVS Retailers Inc of the Rustans and Ayala groups, continue to boost its convenience store count in business districts to cater to the needs of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry.

The Bistro Group is bringing Chuck E. Cheeses, the largest family entertainment chain in the United States, to the Philippines with the maiden branch to rise in Glorietta.

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More foreign retail brands setting up shop amid booming PH consumer market