Retail players find the silver lining in cloudy economy - San Antonio Business Journal:

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Last week, New York-based industry organization the (ICSC) held its annual conferencew at the Convention Center inLas Vegas. It is an eventt that draws thousandsof developers, retailera and brokers from all over the world, for four days of hand-shakinyg and deal making. Although this year, therd weren’t as many thousandsx who were Vegas The 2009 Global RealEstate Convention, or RECoj as it is better known, netted 30,000 attendees, according to Malach Kavanagh, staff vice president of communications and external relations, for That figure is down considerably from the 48,00 0 attendees for RECon 2008.
But what the conference lackesdin size, it made up for in according to many local industry sources who attended this year’s conference. “All in all, I received greatt value of my time and money invested intothe conference,” says Jerryy A. Williams Jr., a vice presidentr in the local office of Fewer participantzs meant less pressure to move at break neckspeexd — shaking hands and doing deals, insiderds say. In fact, this time the focus was not necessarily on doing deals for this year but on setting the groundwork for the years to addsMichael N.
president and principal for Unitedx CommercialRealty (UCR) San “I found it to be a betterr situation,” says Valerie Hunter, a seniodr associate with Grubb & Ellis. “Since the attendanced was down, you could spendx more time with retailers.” Not that anyonw was surprised atthis year’s lower Indeed, even ICSC went into the event knowinf that the attendance numbers were going to be Kavanagh says. One place where the lower turnourtwas apparent, the leasing mall. This mall spans about one millionsquares feet, and consists of a sea of booths by developers and others lookingh to do business in Sin City.
This there were some noted emptuy spaces where booths usedto be, attendantes say. “It was surreal seeing curtains in areas wherde you typicallysee booths,” notes Grubb Ellis Senior Vice President Cynthia Ellison. But for who remembers the dark days ofthe 1980s, adds that this year’es turnout in the leasing mall was still “veryu big compared to the old days.” She adds: “Spirita were high and all went especially compared to the downturn in the ’80w when Texas was red-lined — no one wantes to talk to a Texasz broker. On the contrary, Texas — and San Antonio were the so-called belles of the ball at this year’s REcon.
“Texas is definitely a priority for a lot of Jersin says. “In that same breath, San Antoni o is getting a lot of publicity — good things are happeniny here.” Participants were “talking very bullish aboutt Texas, and San Antonio,” concurs Rick founder of local retail/brokerage firm LLC and the Texas states director for ICSC. “In San Antonio, (retailers) are stilol looking, and still doing deals.” The tough economic timez have caused a shake out in various real estatwsectors — as businessese and brokers looking for an easy buck have gone by the The 2009 RECon was reflective of that trend.
“Those that were therew were serious aboutdoing business, about doing deals,” Kavanagh says. “Those who came out lookingf fordeals — most found them.”