The coronavirus pandemic has sparked economic downturns, depressed real estate market conditions and accelerated the shift of consumer spending patterns away from traditional bricks and mortar businesses to online and e-commerce retail. It has compromised the strength of store distribution networks everywhere, forcing retailers to close under-performing locations, shift traditional capital spending into technology, and in some cases, even caused their demise.
Many long-standing small to mid-sized retail chains and regional players are faced with difficult uncertainties. Retailers are challenged with decisions to close stores and how to mitigate losses. If a retailer decides to temporarily go dark or close a location, the consequences of still having to pay rent on a location that is not in business is undesirable.
decisionSMART has helped many retailers, from single store operations to national retail chains complete a market plan assessment, review their leases and develop repositioning strategies. decisionSMART has successfully facilitated the renegotiating or terminating of leases, secured rent reductions and reduced occupancy costs, disposed of or relocated underperforming assets and reduced overall risk and liability exposure to the company. Based on transactional experience and the ability to understand the collective value of complex and often varied retail portfolios, our recommendations can minimize the potential economic loss within your company and enhance returns from your retail real estate portfolio and to the brand where others may not recognize value.
