04/26/2021 | By John Cumbelich

The past year was a trial by combat in the scorched earth environment of the commercial real estate industry.  The government-mandated closure of retail and dining establishments did much more than punish the present – it pulled the rug out on the future as ...

09/08/2020 | By John Cumbelich

While an anxious national media reports on the retail apocalypse, spiking vacancy rates and big-name bankruptcies, perhaps it’s time for cooler heads to shift their focus squarely to the winners in the present disruption. Doom and gloom sells newspapers, but the list of prospering ...

08/04/2020 | By John Cumbelich

Setbacks. Trials. Disappointments.  As we digest the manifold challenges facing our families, businesses, schools and communities, athletes offer a valuable lesson for a time of trials. Athletes and sports leagues have been much in the news of late, navigating their way, like the rest ...

05/19/2020 | By John Cumbelich

The overbuilt US market for retail space was one crisis away from a major correction. That correction is now upon us. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp relief the costs and consequences of the overbuilt nature of US retail real estate.  Pre-COVID the US ...

03/16/2020 | By John Cumbelich

In the March elections, San Franciscans approved Proposition D, a new tax sponsored by a member the Board of Supervisors that targets landlords of vacant retail space. The sponsor believes that these owners are intentionally keeping their properties vacant, despite tenant demand. The Supervisor ...

01/21/2020 | By John Cumbelich

In a fast-changing retail landscape in which retailers of all shapes and sizes — big box stores, department stores, and other retail brands — are regularly shuttering due to the shift to e-commerce, lenders will increasingly find themselves in the uncomfortable position of owning ...

10/10/2019 | By John Cumbelich

The suburban shopping center business is not in crisis. But the simultaneous presence of two unsettling dynamics in the industry are unraveling once proven assets, and stunting new development. The first of these ailments is the interruption (or is it the termination?) of the anchor tenant ...

04/10/2019 | By John Cumbelich

Retail brands that embrace the Omni-Channel approach to selling their wares seek to create unique silos beyond the retail store where merchandise can be delivered to customers. Catalogues, on-line stores, gift cards and partnerships with credit card companies are among the channels that retail ...