Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
Maybe you're right, but the city has totally dropped the ball when it comes to infrastructure in the South Loop. Considering the huge size of the Near South TIF, this is inexcusable. The biggest investment in the last decade was the auto sewer they built at Roosevelt/Clark.
Congress and the Rock Island are both huge barriers in the neighborhood that the city has done nothing about. For god's sake, there are still jersey barriers sitting on the Polk sidewalk in front of Folio Square.
Sure it vindicates them. America is massively overbuilt on retail space and large chains are expanding at a very slow pace after getting burned in the recession. McCaffery's deal with the lender likely requires them to sign AAA tenants, but it's not possible to do that quickly in today's environment. They have filled RC with as many local businesses as they could manage (bevello, Bridgeport Coffee, Haberdash, ROC, etc) but those slots for AAA tenants are a bitch to fill.
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On, first point - you're certainly not going to find an argument here - the city has really dropped the ball........indefensible really..
Second point, on RC - huh? Is that supposed to be in jest?
Just a couple opening points - Republic of Couture (is this Chicago-based?) has to my knowledge never opened - assuming something is going on there, and obvoiusly wondering if that tenancy is in trouble. At minimum there's there is some kind of bizarrely long delay. Bevello was a Southern import and actually closed 4 or 5 months after they opened. They're long gone.
While true that the US is over-stored (aggregate gross leasable area still towers over other mature markets) - it's tremendously higher than in countries such as Australia and Canada, and Western European countries, etc), this is not by any means necessarily true of urban areas - in fact, national (and to some extent increasingly international) strong credit retailers are recognizing this - and are focusing much of their expansion (admittedly less aggressive overall than pre financial crisis) in under-retailed urban markets (large and dense population, large aggregate discretionary income/spending potential, lower competition levels, and in certain areas (downtown chicago, anyone?, other city cores and neighborhoods around the country), even growing populations and affluence to boot. So RC's remarkably poor performance in leasing the last 1.5-2 years (it's been 3 years now - or nearly 3 years, since 'McHackeffery' purchased it at a low cost basis) is inexcusable - period. That they are now announcing (or leaked to press by them or someone else) 3 quality national/international tenants would certainly not meet any reasonable assessment as to 'vindication'.
Again, from an urbanist's/pedestrian's standpoint, what the developer/current owner of RC have done is completely BS, and should not have been permitted - points Mr Downtown brought up regarding what they're doing 'out the back'. However, from the perspective of most national retailers, they could give two flying f#c%s - trust me, the design, while there are issues, has not been a major contributor to 'McHackeffery's' dismal leasing performance at the center - it is of their own very evident (in the observable results) acute leasing incompetence.
They could definitely still turn it around - I very much hope that they do, by the way. Never mistake analysis and keen assessment for some sort of bias.
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