It’s The Little Things That Matter in Shopping Centers –

When managing your shopping center – It’s the little things that matter most.

The world and how it operates is changing faster than we can keep up with. Every day a new app or a way a business used to operate changes. Shopping malls across America are going dark because so many people are ordering their wares and running every aspect of their lives through the internet. So your smart phone or your iPad is now your limitless shopping mall.

About 15% of U.S. Malls will fail or be converted into non-retail space within the next ten years, according to Green Street Advisors, a real estate and REIT analytics firm. That is an increase from less than two years ago, when the firm predicted 10% of malls would fail or be converted.

Everyone has seen the decline of the once prosperous small downtown areas as the new shopping centers were built around them. The more prudent towns eventually reinvented the downtown experience and brought in fine dining and little shops for patrons to walk through, like Asbury Park, Somerville, Red Bank, and Freehold. Even the once desire for a suburban community has been losing ground to the more urban areas, where you can walk to dinner or get a cup of coffee.

Shopping center owners need to continually reinvest in their centers to keep local shoppers coming to their locations. Certainly, mortgages, taxes, and operating expenses are not going down, so when rents start to fall, filling a dark store comes directly out of the owner’s profits. The exterior needs to be clean and the façade up to date, the parking lots need to be properly paved and crisp lines in the parking spaces. Landscaping needs to be neat and trimmed, and flowers planted.

So always remember that all the little things add up in for your shopper’s minds to keep them coming back.

We here at KPM understand this, and try to work with each owner to plan operations, as well as a capital and operational budget to meet current and future needs, so revenues can be optimized.

For more information about managing your shopping center, please contact Klein Property Management at (732) 446-0611 or visit us at CLICK HERE!