Making Retail Spaces Pandemic/Internet/Big Box Store Resistant

By Bruce Firestone | Architecture

May 08

At the beginning of this pandemic, folks asked me what I thought would happen to real estate values. I believed office and shopping mall valuations would fall out of bed while industrial and residential would hold their own. The latter because people always need a place to live; the former because I thought nations (including Canada and the US) would have to re-shore a lot of production since international supply chains might become reliable.

I got it right except for residential… where prices took off in a quite unexpected (at least to me) way.

Anyhow, since the pandemic began, we—my clients and I—have acted on this forecast. We’ve been investing in industrial buildings, multi residential apartments and mixed-use structures (basically, commercial at grade with apartments above) with some success.

Now, Prof Bruce, you might be thinking, why would you invest in buildings with commercial at grade? Didn’t you just write (see above) that retail space (shopping malls) would fall in value?

Yes, I did. But we have been focused on creating retail spaces that are pandemic, big box store & internet-resistant; this requires some innovation.

For example, here’s a French bakery on Front Street in Belleville ON with a slider window providing easy curbside pickup, ie, it’s a pedestrian “drive-thru.”

If you think about the bakery, it’s French so it’s automatically differentiated from picking up a loaf of Donald Duck white bread from a mass market retailer. I’d say that qualifies them as “big-box store-resistant.” In fact, there are (socially distant) outside lineups every Sunday to pick up their hot, chocolate-filled croissants. I know because I bought some myself.

You can also pre-order online (which we did) so it has an internet presence, which means it isn’t solely dependent on walk-in traffic… Plus, it’s likely that folks prefer ordering their croissants for either pickup or home delivery from the bakery instead of Amazon.

I reckon that this store meets all three of my tests for success today…

Prof Bruce

FOR REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT AND BUSINESS COACHING THAT’LL HELP YOU PROVIDE FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY FOR 3-GENERATIONS, PLEASE CONTACT:

Bruce M Firestone, B Eng (civil), M Eng-Sci, PhD
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Ottawa Senators founder
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Image source: Flibirigit at en.wikipedia – Self-taken photo, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15731187

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About the Author

Bruce is an entrepreneur/real estate broker/developer/coach/urban guru/keynote speaker/Sens founder/novelist/columnist/peerless husband/dad.

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