Quote:
Originally Posted by biggus diggus
It brings up an interesting question:
What do you do if you're Arizona Center? With office, retail and dining all in the tank how do they utilize the space in any way that's profitable. In recent years they began renting the grassy areas and fountain space for events but that's off the table for at least a few more months.
200 apartments on property isn't going to change much on the retail/dining front. It's not the silver bullet. Even if two people live in every unit that's not going to save the mall, especially when there are no conventions. I'd be looking for a tenant who needs a lot of space for a call center or support services and get them in at a discount rate. Stop the bleeding. Will be interesting to see how they decide to position themselves.
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I really think they would've been wise to go with condos. The housing market is on fire. In addition, if I were them, I'd look to take advantage of the market (Phoenix should continue to do well with residents flooding in from other states) and draw up plans to build on the vacant parking lots another 2 residential towers. I'd plan for some ground floor retail.
Then, they can see if the retail market starts to recover and if the new developments drive more demand for on-site retail. Otherwise, I think I'd use the proceeds to start to take down parts of the shopping center and continue to build more residential units with ground floor retail.
Likely they'd need to phase this very carefully, which is why i think 31-story tower with condos instead of apartments would be critical to providing the funding for future development on site.