Retail Real Estate: Clean Up in Aisle Six, or Heading to Chapter-7? - StepStone Group

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Retail Real Estate: Clean Up in Aisle Six, or Heading to Chapter-7? - StepStone Group
Retail Real Estate:
                                                             Clean Up in Aisle Six, or Heading to Chapter-7?

            "First there was books, then                                     With Amazon's recent acquisition of Whole Foods,
                                                                             and the near daily announcements of store closings, much
            music and video...Now Amazon.                                    has been written about the death of retail. Perhaps too much.
            com is placing its bets on the                                   After all, US consumers touch retail daily. The newsstand,
            fledgling grocery business."                                     coffee shop, lunch spot, supermarket, drug store, dry cleaner,
                           – The New York Times, 19 May 1999                 fitness center, movie theater, take-out dinner place and frozen
                                                                             yogurt bar all occupy retail oriented real estate. Chances
                                                                             are that unless one falls within a narrow demographic and
                                                                             geographic segment, most of what is worn or eaten comes via
                                                                             brick and mortar locations. And given that people are likely
                                                                             to continue getting dressed and eating every day, demand for
                                                                             retail will persist.
                                                                             Will evolving consumer shopping patterns impact retail
                                                                             oriented real estate? Of course. Just as malls took retailers from
                                                                             Main Street in the 1970s and category-killer power centers
                                                                             took shoppers away from malls in the 1990s, the Internet has
                                                                             transformed the way the world shops. The issue that investors
                                                                             will address over the coming decade is the extent to which
                                                                             these changes in buyer behavior result in obsolescence
                                                                             or opportunity.

February
STEPSTONE2018
          | Retail Real Estate: Clean Up in Aisle Six, or Heading to Chapter-7?                                                             1
E-commerce Sales Growing Fourfold
                                                                    FIGURE 1 | E-COMMERCE AS % OF US RETAIL SALES
Over Retail Sales                                                              (EXCLUDING AUTOMOBILE & GAS STATION SALES)
In 2007, 5.2% of retail sales (excluding spending on autos
and gas) occurred online. Today, that figure is 13.2% with          40%

e-commerce spending growing at an annualized 12.8% over             35%                                                                                                                           2027
                                                                                                                                                                                                  33.7%
the past decade compared to just 2.7% for overall retail sales.
                                                                    30%
Projecting these trends out over the next decade suggests that
one-third of retail sales could occur online by 2027 (Figure 1).    25%

The trend toward e-commerce is leading to a record number           20%
of store closings projected for 2017; retailers such as HH Gregg,
                                                                    15%                                                                            2017
Sports Authority, Gander Mountain, Radio Shack, Payless                                                                                            13.2%
Shoes, The Limited and Toys 'R' Us have all announced closings      10%                                  2007
and/or bankruptcy protection. This is on top of the weakness                                             5.2%
                                                                     5%
seen at general merchandise retailers where closures are                                                                                                                   Projected
planned at Sears/Kmart (150 locations), J.C. Penney (138) and        0%
                                                                          Dec-99

                                                                                      Dec-02

                                                                                                   Dec-05

                                                                                                                   Dec-08

                                                                                                                                   Dec-11

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                                                                                                                                                            Dec-17

                                                                                                                                                                         Dec-20

                                                                                                                                                                                         Dec-23

                                                                                                                                                                                                         Dec-26
Macy’s (68). The 8,640 stores projected to close in 2017 is up
fourfold from the 2016 levels and a 40% increase over the
global financial crisis (GFC) level of 6,163 in 2008 (Figure 2).    Source: US Census Bureau June 2017, StepStone.

At the same time that there are a record number of stores
closing, there are interesting new entrants into the physical
retail space; formerly online only operators such as Bonobos,         FIGURE 2 | ANNUAL RETAIL STORE CLOSINGS
Warby Parker, Fabletics, Athleta and Boston Proper have all
begun to open brick and mortar outlets to create omni-channel                                                                                                                                            8640
distribution options for their consumers. Even e-commerce
pioneer Amazon has begun to test unique store concepts
for books and convenience food while finalizing designs for                                                                         6163
an ‘Apple-esque’ showroom for its line of tablets, e-readers
                                                                                                                                                                                         5077
and wireless speakers. The less encouraging aspect of the
                                                                             4475                                                           4442
entrants is that a Bonobos, Warby Parker, or Amazon store is                                                                                       3917
substantially smaller than a J. Crew, LensCrafter, or Barnes &                      3081                                                                                          3084
                                                                                                                            2795
Noble store given that the new entrant is mostly a showroom                                       2645                                                    2480
                                                                      1975                 2003                                                                  2140                             2056
with almost no inventory. Mall owners are leasing to these                                                  1704                                                        1766
                                                                                                                   1343
new entrants to fill storefronts, but are in effect getting
paid for one-third of the space, leaving a large portion of
dead space behind newly erected dividing walls. Another
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change in the retail landscape is that off-price retailers such
as Burlington, Dress Barn and TJX are all opening new stores
as consumers have become thriftier since the GFC.                    Source: Credit Suisse.

 2
Creative destruction has been at work for over a century
in the retail space as new entrants, new formats and new                     FIGURE 3 | R
                                                                                         EIT SECTOR RETURNS & WEIGHTS
technologies have altered the landscape from Main Street to
malls to power centers to omni-channel. To a large extent, the               30%
pain felt by the retail sector is more of a story about corporate            25%
strategy than a real estate story.                                           20%
The concern over retail business strength is most evident in                 15%
the real estate investment trust (REIT) market where investors               10%
can express their fear or favor daily. The listed real estate
                                                                               5%
market was introduced to investors in 1991 when the open-air
                                                                               0%
shopping center owner Kimco Realty became the first publicly
                                                                              (5%)
traded REIT. Given that provenance, and the concentration
of high value malls in the publicly traded REITs, retail is the              (10%)

largest sector within the NAREIT Equity REIT Index at 16.9%.                 (15%)

                                                                                                        Industrial

                                                                                                                           Office

                                                                                                                                           Retail

                                                                                                                                                         Residential

                                                                                                                                                                                Diversified

                                                                                                                                                                                                Lodging/Resorts

                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Health Care

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Self Storage

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Infrastructure

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Data Centers

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Specialty
                                                                                         NAREIT Index

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Timber
Through September 2017, retail REITs were down 10.8%,
the only sector to post a negative return for the period
(Figure 3). This compares to a 6.0% gain for the broader index                                                                                      Returns YTD                                                            Sector Weight

and is considerably lower than the strong returns posted in                  Source: NAREIT as of September 2017.
Data Centers (28.0%) and Industrial (18.5%).
Grocery anchored REITs such as DDR (-40.3%) and Brixmor
(-23.1%) were down even more than the retail sector given
concern over e-commerce entrants.
The US grocery market is extremely fragmented and regional.
Whole Foods is one of only a few national chains, but even
with 460 stores the chain represents only a 1.7% market share.               FIGURE 4 | G
                                                                                         ROCERY SECTOR MARKET SHARE
Add to that level the 0.8% share that Amazon garners and
you have the seventh or eighth largest purveyor of groceries                 17.3%
in the country (Figure 4). The market is split on whether the
Whole Foods acquisition will mark the beginning of the end
of grocery anchored retail, or a capitulation from Amazon that
losing money on delivery was unsustainable and therefore a
move into physical stores would lower operating expenses by                            8.9%

having consumers pick up goods from a centralized location.
                                                                                               5.6% 5.1%
It is worth noting that the grocery business is a very low margin
                                                                                                                     3.4% 3.4%
business dependent on high volume to turn a small profit.                                                                                  2.5%
                                                                                                                                                    1.9% 1.7% 1.7% 1.7% 1.5% 1.5%
The business model is being challenged by demographic                                                                                                                                                                                1.3% 1.2% 1.1% 1.0% 0.9%
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        0.8% 0.8%
shifts. Millennials are delaying marriage and parenting. They
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  BJ’s Wholesale Club
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Hy-Vee Food Stores
                                                                                                                                                                  Whole Foods
                                                                                                                                                    HEB Grocery

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Trader Joe’s
                                                                                                                     Sam’s Club

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Wegmans
                                                                                                                                                                                  Delhanize
                                                                                                                                                                                              ShopRite
                                                                             Walmart

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Amazon
                                                                                             Kroger

                                                                                             Costco

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Target
                                                                                                                                  Publix

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Meijer
                                                                                                                                           Ahold

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Aldi
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Southwestern
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Grocers
                                                                                       Albertson’s/
                                                                                          Safeway

also prioritize experiences over possessions; in the age of
celebrity chefs and Instagram, dining experiences are high on
their bucket list. Both young and old are migrating to urban
apartments rather than suburban homes. All of this means
that there has been a shift to dining out.                                   Source: Statisdata 2016.

STEPSTONE | Retail Real Estate: Clean Up in Aisle Six, or Heading to Chapter-7?                                                                                                                                                                                                                              3
In 1992, households spent about US$162 at grocery stores
for every US$100 spent at restaurants (Figure 5). Over time,             FIGURE 5 | MONTHLY SPEND ON FOOD & BEVERAGE BY VENUE
spending at restaurants gradually increased to the point
that in 2015, retail sales at restaurants were actually higher                                     $60,000

than retail sales at grocery stores. Operators of retail centers
have identified this trend and have increased the food and                                         $50,000

                                                                    Monthly Sales (US$ millions)
beverage component of their tenant mix in order to provide the
                                                                                                   $40,000
experiences that cannot be replicated online.

                                                                                                   $30,000
The Move to Omni-channel
Is Bi-directional                                                                                  $20,000

At its core, a retail store is a distribution center in which the                                  $10,000
items are selected by the consumer who then bears the burden
of last mile delivery (i.e., they take their purchases home).                                          $0
Amazon has already announced an arrangement with the

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department store Kohls whereby customers wishing to return                                                                      Grocery    Restaurant
goods received via delivery can return incorrect items to a local
                                                                          Source: US Census Bureau, October 2017.
Kohls store. This reduces the overall delivery cost for Amazon,
increases customer satisfaction and therefore purchase
activity, and potentially leads to an up-sell opportunity in
which Kohls might be able to entice Amazon customers to
make a purchase during their visit. There are rumors currently
that Amazon will deepen this relationship by acquiring Kohls,             FIGURE 6 | BENEFITS OF OMNI-CHANNEL OPERATIONS
which would signal a confirmation of the importance of
omni-channel operations in the evolution of retail.
Studies have indicated that the benefit to the retailer from                                                 35%                                         75% in-store
                                                                                                       Return Rate                    35%               purchase during
having an omni-channel operation can be significant given                                                                             Return              return visit
                                                                                                                                       Rate
that as many as 35% of all online orders are returned, at
significant expense to the retailer. By directing returns to
                                                                                                                     = 65%                                         = 90%
a store location, the retailer is able to up-sell the customer                                                       Net Sale                                       Net Sale
three-quarters of the time, meaning that net sales rise from                               ONLINE ONLY                            OMNI-CHANNEL
65% to around 90% (Figure 6).                                                                      Source: Shop Visible.
The move to omni-channel has been bi-directional with
e-commerce players acquiring brick and mortar retailers,
and vice versa. In the past 12 months Walmart has acquired
Jet.com and Bonobos; PetSmart has acquired Chewy’s;
Nordstrom has acquired Trunk Club; and Saks Fifth Avenue has
acquired GILT Groupe. The US$6.5 billion paid by the retailers in     There has only been one
these transactions marked a significant investment in building
out an online presence to complement their physical presence,         mall built in the US in the
as well as the acquisition of technology and technologists that
will be crucial in the retail landscape of the future.                past decade.

 4
Little Warehouse on the Prairie
Imagine a time when consumers would have to go to a store,
select among a limited number of offerings, and then pay whatever
the merchant demands because competition is relatively low. Think
then if technology brought a new entrant into that consumer’s world
whereby the buyer could select from a seemingly infinite number of
items in all sizes and colors, and then, as if by magic, have their purchases
delivered to their home. Surely this would be the end of stores. Right?
At the end of the 19th century, most Americans shopped at
a general store that carried 100 to 200 items. In contrast to the
drab physical shopping experience, technology in the form of the
1886 Bloomingdales catalog featured 1,700 items with illustrations
and enticing prose. The Sears catalog of 1895 had 583 pages
of merchandise that rural people didn’t know existed or know
that they needed, but once they saw it, they sure did crave it.
Ponder the competitive advantage these new entrants enjoyed with
their ability to reach customers in far flung locales, present them an
endless assortment of goods and ship to them directly. Clearly this
technology-enabled competitor would lead to the extinction of local
stores with their limited inventory and legacy cost structures. Not
exactly. In fact, rather than rely solely on the catalog, Sears built on
the success of the mail order business by opening brick and mortar
stores around the country. In 1931, 50 years into the company’s
existence, Sears' in-store sales volume eclipsed the catalog business
for the first time, and forever thereafter. Retailers of the late 19th
century pioneered omni-channel with their recognition that
physical stores can complement technology to provide a broad set
of purchase opportunities for their consumers. Technology-enabled
competition is once again reshaping the retail landscape. Will brick
and mortar survive? Will omni-channel once again be the winner?
Half of US Malls Could Close Within
a Decade                                                              FIGURE 7 | US MALLS BY GRADE
                                                                         160                                                           25%
The typical mall anchor department store was on life support
after the pain inflicted from power centers in the 1990s. Just           140
before these companies went under, private equity and hedge                                                                            20%

                                                                                                                                             Share of Total Market Value
                                                                         120
fund buyers were attracted to their cash flow potential and
snatched them up in flurry from 2000–2008. The new owners                100
                                                                                                                                       15%

                                                                     Count
levered the operations to the point that debt service costs                  80
prevented them from investing in e-commerce technologies                                                                               10%
                                                                             60
and distribution capabilities that would have helped them
weather the threat from online competitors. As a result,                     40
                                                                                                                                       5%
these anchors are in dire financial condition and are no longer
                                                                             20
drawing in the foot traffic needed to make the enclosed mall
ecosystem viable. Anchors had been given extremely low                       0                                                         0%
                                                                                  A++ A+   A   A-   B+ B       B-    C+   C   C-   D
rental rates for their large footprint stores on long term leases.                                  Grade of Malls
The idea was that four or five of them on the outer spokes of                                       Count      Market Value

a mall would draw consumers through the mall and into the            Source: Green Street Advisors.

inline merchants. These merchants would be willing to pay a
much higher rental rate provided foot traffic was sufficient to
ensure higher conversion.
                                                                      The more likely scenario is that the lower grade malls begin to
As the anchors fail, however, the mall operator is left with a
                                                                      be decommissioned. Doing so may have a major impact on
large format box that is hard enough to fill in the first place,
                                                                      the markets that rely on these centers, but is not likely to have
let alone repurpose. These dark boxes at the end of the mall          a large impact on the investable universe; even though the
also diminish the consumer flow to the inline stores, which           malls rated B or lower represent 60% of the number of malls,
leads to a downward spiral in rental rates, occupancy and             they are only 18% of the market value for US malls (Figure 7).
merchant credit quality.
                                                                      Land parcels with decommissioned malls are being razed
According to Green Street Advisors, there are approximately           and repurposed as multifamily communities, single family
1,100 malls in the US, of which about 250 are Grade A or better.      neighborhoods—or warehouse distribution centers for
Within this stratum there are around 100 “trophy” or “fortress”       e-commerce operators.
malls that are the dominant center in their respective markets
and are not likely to lose significant foot traffic to e-commerce
in the near term given their strong market demographics and           Seeking the Hole in the Donut
unique merchant mix. The trophy malls tend to be closely held         Converting former retail sites into distribution centers—or
by a small number of REITs, core open-ended funds, pension            in the case of the Amazon / Whole Foods deal, repositioning
funds or sovereign wealth funds. They rarely trade hands.             existing retail into distribution centers—solves the challenge
Given that there has only been one mall built in the US in the        of getting goods closer to their ultimate destination. For most
past decade, the number of fortress malls is not likely to grow.      of the 20th century, that ultimate destination for goods coming

 6
from an industrial warehouse was a retail store located around
the central business district (CBD) somewhere between                        FIGURE 8 | 20TH CENTURY URBAN PLANNING
clusters of single family neighborhoods or multifamily
communities (Figure 8). Delivering goods to these stores
was aided by a highway system that developed ring roads to
keep commercial vehicles from traversing residential surface
streets. Now that the ultimate destination for goods ordered
online is a home address, e-commerce operators are likely to
continue to seek physical locations from which to manage
logistics. These logistics include everything from traditional
home delivery and returns processing, to hybrid click-and-
pick scenarios where the consumer orders the items online for                      CBD Office
in-store retrieval or where a consumer fills a virtual basket of                   Multi-family
goods online and the store employees pick the physical basket                      Retail
of goods to shopper’s specifications. In the latter scenario, the                  Single Family
shopper can set a time to pick the order up, or the merchant                       Suburban Office
might facilitate home delivery from a variety of gig-job                           Industrial
services such as InstaCart or TaskRabbit.
                                                                             Source: StepStone Group.

Buy Now, Or Wait for the Sale?
With all the creative destruction that has occurred over the
past few decades, one might assume that retail oriented real
estate has been a volatile investment. However, the retail
                                                                              FIGURE 9 | 20 YEAR RISK/RETURN FOR PRIMARY
sector has been the best performing and least volatile sector
                                                                                          PROPERTY TYPES
among the primary property types over the past 20 years
(Figure 9). As the second largest sector in the NCREIF Property
                                                                                           11.5%
Index, with a 22.3% weighting, retail has generated annual
returns that are 100 basis points above the broader index
with 11.0% and 10.0%, respectively (Figure 9). The standard                                11.0%        Retail

deviation of retail returns is more than 200 basis points below
                                                                            Total Return

that of office.                                                                            10.5%                 Industrial

Granted there have been rapid developments in the retail
                                                                                                         All Properties
landscape over the last 20 months that may cause some                                      10.0%
to dismiss the return profile of the preceding 20 years, with                                                                 Multifamily                  Office
the common refrain that "past returns are not guarantees                                    9.5%
of future results." However, those developments have
yet to lead to significant changes in retail valuations
                                                                                            9.0%
or fundamentals.                                                                                7.5%   8.0%         8.5%      9.0%          9.5%   10.0%      10.5%

                                                                                                       Standard Deviation of Annual Returns
                                                                              Source: NCREIF.
                                                                              Note: Size of circles corresponds to to sector weight within NCREIF.

STEPSTONE | Retail Real Estate: Clean Up in Aisle Six, or Heading to Chapter-7?                                                                                 7
The Real Capital Analytics cap rate for retail real estate ended
     FIGURE 10 | VALUATION METRICS FOR RETAIL REAL ESTATE                                                                                                                                      the third quarter of 2017 within six basis points of the all-time
               10%                                                                                                                                   $300                                       low of 6.46% seen in 2007. On a price per square foot basis,
                                                                                                                                                                                                retail is 16% over its long-term average and right on top of the
                         9%
                                                                                                                                                     $250                                       2007 levels (Figure 10).

                                                                                                                                                                 Price Per Square Foot
                         8%
                                                                    6.46%                                                              6.52%                                                    Cap rates and prices are holding steady because the real
Cap Rate

                         7%
                                                                                                                                                     $200                                       estate fundamentals remain supportive of investment with
                         6%                                                                                                                                                                     supply low, vacancy in check and rents growing for 23 straight
                                                                                                                                       $190
                         5%                                             $188                                                                         $150                                       quarters (Figures 11 & 12). These strong fundamentals
                         4%                                                                                                                                                                     controvert the weakness in the retail REITs, suggesting that
                                                                                                                                                     $100                                       individual investors may be more spooked than institutional
                         3%
                                                                                                                                                                                                asset owners.
                                                                                                                                              3Q17
                              3Q01
                                     3Q02
                                            3Q03
                                                   3Q04
                                                          3Q05
                                                                 3Q06
                                                                        3Q07
                                                                               3Q08
                                                                                      3Q09
                                                                                             3Q10
                                                                                                    3Q11
                                                                                                           3Q12
                                                                                                                  3Q13
                                                                                                                         3Q14
                                                                                                                                3Q15
                                                                                                                                       3Q16

                                Cap Rate                                                        $/sf
    Source: Real Capital Analytics.
                                                                                                                                                                                                The Future of Omni-channel Retail
                                                                                                                                                                                                As stated above, not all sites will continue to be functional as
     FIGURE 11 | RETAIL SUPPLY & DEMAND
                                                                                                                                                                                                retail given physical or market challenges with the asset. Some
                         15                                                                                                                          12%                                        of these sites will be scrapped; others will undergo significant
                                                                                                                                                                                                repositioning to include new multifamily developments,
                                                                                                                                                     10%
                                                                                                                                                                                                medical care facilities, and offices.
Square Feet (millions)

                         10
                                                                                                                                                                  Vacancy (%)

                                                                                                                                                     8%
                          5
                                                                                                                                                     6%
                          0
                                                                                                                                                     4%

                     (5)

                                                                                                                                                                                                In 2017, Walmart started
                              1Q11
                              2Q11
                              3Q11
                              4Q11
                              1Q12
                              2Q12
                              3Q12
                              4Q12
                              1Q13
                              2Q13
                              3Q13
                              4Q13
                              1Q14
                              2Q14
                              3Q14
                              4Q14
                              1Q15
                              2Q15
                              3Q15
                              4Q15
                              1Q16
                              2Q16
                              3Q16
                              4Q16
                              1Q17
                              2Q17

                                 Demand                   Supply                      10 Yr Avg New Supply                             Vacancy

       Source: REIS.                                                                                                                                                                            a program in which
                                                                                                                                                                                                shoppers can make
     FIGURE 12 | RETAIL SUPPLY & DEMAND
                         $18.5                                                                                                                       3%                                         purchases online, have
                                                                                                                                                                                                those orders filled from
                                                                                                                                                     2%
                         $18.0
                                                                                                                                                            Year-Over-Year Change in Rent (%)

                                                                                                                                                     1%
                         $17.5

                                                                                                                                                                                                a local store, and have
                                                                                                                                                     0%
   Rent (US$/SQFT)

                         $17.0                                                                                                                       (1%)

                                                                                                                                                                                                the goods delivered by a
                                                                                                                                                     (2%)
                         $16.5
                                                                                                                                                     (3%)
                         $16.0

                                                                                                                                                                                                Walmart associate on their
                                                                                                                                                     (4%)

                         $15.5                                                                                                                       (5%)
                                 1Q11
                                 2Q11
                                 3Q11
                                 4Q11
                                 1Q12
                                 2Q12
                                 3Q12
                                 4Q12
                                 1Q13
                                 2Q13
                                 3Q13
                                 4Q13
                                 1Q14
                                 2Q14
                                 3Q14
                                 4Q14
                                 1Q15
                                 2Q15
                                 3Q15
                                 4Q15
                                 1Q16
                                 2Q16
                                 3Q16
                                 4Q16
                                 1Q17
                                 2Q17

                                                                   Rent                      Y-O-Y Growth                                                                                       way home.
   Source: REIS.

                  8
The geographic positioning of many retail locations can make
FIGURE 13 | 20TH CENTURY DISTRIBUTION MODEL                                  them attractive hubs for the distribution of goods; most are
                                                                             likely to continue to serve that function as the consumer
                                                                             shopping model evolves from brick and mortar (Figure 13)
                                                                             or e-commerce (Figure 14) to omni-channel with brick and
                                                                             mortar and e-commerce (Figure 15).

 CBD Office                                                                  Conclusions
 Multi-family
 Retail
                                                                             Observations based on national valuations for a broad
 Single Family                                                               category of real estate is of marginal utility given the wide
 Suburban Office                                                             variations from market to market and among property types
 Industrial                                                                  (i.e., malls, power centers and grocery anchored sprint centers).
                                                                             It is also of marginal value to view headlines regarding tenant
Source: StepStone Group.
                                                                             weakness as an indication of the value of the real estate
                                                                             they occupy.
                                                                             As with all real estate, location matters and this is particularly
FIGURE 14 | E-COMMERCE MODEL
                                                                             true for retail oriented real estate given that the trade area
                                                                             demographics will determine whether the center will draw
                                                                             sufficient consumer spending to support the tenant mix.
                                                                             If the trade area and location are supportive of omni-channel
                                                                             retailers, or experiential retail, then there will likely continue to
                                                                             be value in the real estate.
 CBD Office                                                                  StepStone Real Estate believes that investors should
 Multi-family
                                                                             be simultaneously cautious about the potential value
 Retail
 Single Family
                                                                             erosion that is likely to occur at certain retail properties
 Suburban Office                                                             and opportunistically positioned to take advantage of the
 Industrial                                                                  re-pricing to gain exposure to assets that are well positioned
                                                                             to participate in the next generation of retail real estate.
Source: StepStone Group.
                                                                             Specific risk factors that will drive the re-pricing are the
                                                                             smaller store sizes required by inventory-lite retail concepts,
                                                                             the functional obsolescence of certain configurations, and
FIGURE 15 | OMNI-CHANNEL MODEL                                               the reduced foot traffic caused by home delivery. One risk
                                                                             that investors should not fear is the risk of being too late.
                                                                             This re-pricing will take time so investors will be rewarded
                                                                             for sagacity and prudence.

 CBD Office
 Multi-family
 Retail
 Single Family
 Suburban Office
 Industrial

Source: StepStone Group.

STEPSTONE | Retail Real Estate: Clean Up in Aisle Six, or Heading to Chapter-7?                                                               9
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STEPSTONE | Retail Real Estate: Clean Up in Aisle Six, or Heading to Chapter-7?                                                       12
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