By
Beverly Keith (Raleigh, NC)
On June 1, I was pleased to attend and
participate in the eighth annual InterFace Carolinas commercial real estate
event produced by France Media.
The event attracted more than 250 participants,
who listened to six panels of exceptionally informed commercial real estate
experts discuss the state of the market across North Carolina and South
Carolina. Mark Vitner, Managing Director and
Senior Economist at Wells Fargo, was the keynote speaker and presented a top-down
view of current economic trends in the Carolinas. A few interesting takeaways included:
- · Employment statistics as reported by the U.S. government can be misleading. The government counts anyone employed for only one hour in the last 30- day period as employed;
- · The significant economic impact of the HB2 law’s enactment and repeal will most likely not be fully realized for another two or three years; and
- Vitner forecasted GDP growth in 2017 at 2.5%, not the 3.5% that the federal government is predicting.
Additional topics covered included the state of the market, capital markets and trends in the office, industrial, retail and multi-family markets. Not only were the speakers well informed and actively involved in their designated segments, but the networking between panel discussions was exceptional.
On the heels of ICSC ReCon, which was held
in May, the retail panel included David Kelly, CIO of Wheeler REIT; Matt Klump,
Vice-President of Acquisitions for RCG Ventures; Jimmy Penman, Director of
Leasing at Lat Purser & Associates, Drew Gorman SVP, Acquisitions &
Development at ECHO Realty, and me.
The retail topic was grocery wars and
how the influx of so many new grocers is fragmenting and disrupting business as
usual in the Carolinas. With everyone
agreed that Wegman’s entry to the market is a game changer, there was
significant discussion on which grocers may grow their market share, establish
a foothold or lose market share. The
consensus is that, while the Carolinas continue to add population at an
extremely fast clip, the grocer market cannot support so many grocery choices
in the market. Some will win and some
will lose, but don’t count out the homegrown favorites of Harris Teeter and
Food Lion, each of which has reinforced its brand with significant upgrades and,
in some cases, new stores. Shoppers are
finicky; they’ll try the new player just to return to the tried and true.
I’d like to extend a special thank you
to France Media’s Associate Publisher Ryan Nixon for his leadership in
organizing this exceptional event. And thank you to the North Carolina chapter
of CCIM for its diamond sponsorship and Avison Young for its silver sponsorship.
(Beverly
Keith is a Senior Vice-President of Retail Services based in Avison Young’s
Raleigh office.)
