I am gunshy about buying my first strip shopping center. I’ve got a line on two deals. I’m looking at turnarounds. They are both about half empty. My queation is, what is an effective way to market the empty spaces? Do you just cold call businesses that would be a good fit? Ideas please.
If the strip is half empty, is is proably older and past it’s life span. If that is the case, it will need a total face lift (expensive) that changes the entire look and makes it look modern. That includes refinishing the parking lot and doing new fronts on every store.
Sometime changes in the road layout will kill some shops in the area and there is nothing you can do about that.
Some of the older strips do not have enough parking, or the entrances have become awkward as traffic increases. Maybe soimething can be done, or maybe not.
A big killer of strip malls is a brand new shiny Wal-mart in the area. Maybe you can make the shops absolutely adorable and attract specialty botique type businesses. They are just about the only ones who can compete with wal-mart.
Sometimes it works to convert the mall to offices.
It won’t do you any good to cold call on existing businesses. They will all be on long term leases, and unless you have some magic way to learn which ones are about to reach the end of their lease, you are wasting your time.
Thanks for your help. But I know for a fact that commercial leasing agents cold call companies. You’re not necessarily trying to get a current business to move necessarily, but I guess get them when they are wanting to expand into another area. I know about making a center over, I need to know specifics about reaching prospective tenants. Thanks again.