For WeinPlus, Good Data Trumps Intuition When Setting Development Strategy

St. Petersburg, Fla. --- Commercial property developers have long relied on their intuition when planning project strategy, but new research is suggesting that good, hard data is a better measure of the potential for success and a much better gauge of specific development strategies such as tenant mix.

“It’s very common in the real estate industry to drive by a site and if it “feels right,” that makes it right,” said Rachel Elias Wein, founder and CEO of WeinPlus Real Estate Advisory Services in St. Petersburg.

But intuition---a mix of experience, inspiration and vision that mark most successful developers---takes a back seat to accurate data on customer traffic, merchandising, co-tenancy and restrictions when it comes to creating long-term, successful projects.

“Development strategy is much more scientific today than it was even 10 years ago,” Wein said. “Emerging data resources such as Test and Learn software, powered by the explosion in the GIS and consumer data associated with loyalty programs, have created whole new ways to measure what potential tenants need in a retail center and what will help make them successful,” she said.

For example, Wein said, it’s common to have a pharmacy restriction in a shopping center, only allowing one pharmacy. However, in an effort to reduce competition on the subject center, it could potentially drive traffic to another site across the street. The information is available to know the actual impact of a competing pharmacy inline, on an outparcel, or on a site across the street.

And it’s not just for developers alone; retailers should be seeking out data related to their top 10 co-tenants. What are shoppers looking for when they enter a store? Locating a retail store adjacent to complementary traffic generators improves the customer’s shopping experience and makes them more likely to return.

Locating complementary retailers in the same center may create a shopping destination with powerful traffic-driving momentum that can boost sales for all retailers in the center.

“Developers have a vested interest in creating an environment where their tenants will succeed,” Wein said. “The reliability of data resources has improved dramatically over the past decade and rank as perhaps the most important factor in judging a retail facility’s long-term viability,” she said.