Pop-up stores get deals on retail space
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Stacey Vanek-Smith: Commercial real estate has been in rough shape, too. Lots of stores have closed their doors, leaving lots of empty space shopping areas. That has been good for one group, though — pop-up stores. Those are temporary shops that come and go within a matter of weeks. Ashley Milne-Tyte has more.
Ashley Milne-Tyte: New York City has plenty of empty retail space right now. Sam Chandan of Real Estate Econometrics says that’s a landlord’s worst nightmare.
Sam Chandan: Landlords occupancy very highly.
He says that means they often make concessions on rent to ensure they can keep the space filled.
Chandan: But they may also make concessions in terms of what they would have perceived as being the ideal tenant.
The ideal tenant would normally be willing to sign a multi-year lease. Menswear label Kai D is somewhere in between. It opened a pop-up store in lower Manhattan earlier this fall. Kai D designer Aaron Odle says they recently extended their lease for another 13 months. Odle says they lucked out on the price.
Aaron Odle: I definitely think that with so many spaces open, we negotiated into a deal that was beneficial to us and within our budget.
He says they’d love to stay, but part of that depends on how quickly shoppers re-open their wallets and how liberally they spend. The faster consumers get back to their old ways, the sooner landlords are likely to raise rents.
In New York, I’m Ashley Milne-Tyte for Marketplace.
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