No, I Did Not Win CoStar's Porsche

Retail Insight... Confession: After thirty-five years in commercial real estate, I've yet to attend ICSC's huge Las Vegas blowout (46,000 attendees).

So you know that I did not win the Porsche earlier this year awarded there by CoStar to promote the launch of its retail service. Gotta go next year (when I'm on sabbatical!).

CoStar's new service integrates 450,000 shopping centers, 1.1 million store locations and hundreds of thousands of images into its already massive research database. (All CoStar Property Professional subscribers now access this service.)

"We LOVE CoStar! It's aiding us in the rollout and development of our concept through more information and targeted site selection. It will ultimately result in higher average unit volumes in these locations." That's Frank Dasaro Vice President of Franchise Development at Sbarro.

So CoStar's new retail service benefits both brokers and retail tenants themselves. "We track the top 3,000 retailers and update their locations every 30-45 days," states Michael Griffin, Senior Product Director for Retail.

Let's say that you're responsible for managing co-tenancy agreements for hundreds of locations. It would be very difficult (practically speaking, impossible) to monitor all adjacent retail activity.

But you could generate CoStar alerts that might indicate violation of a co-tenancy agreement -- like an anchor tenant moving out or a decline in occupancy below 90%. Cool.

Spread the Word... This Dispatch is a "Sponsor Profile" recognizing CoStar as a major supporter to PikeNet. Thank you! For information on sponsorships, click here.

-- Peter Pike