Richard J. Brunelli Local retailers often represent the difference between a profitable strip center and one suffering from a negative cash flow. Strip centers of all sizes are much more dependent on leasing to local retailers than regional malls are. Flexibility and openness to leasing opportunities . Often, a local retailer will commit to space that a chain will reject.
Local retailers tend to be more flexible and, by some measures, better merchants.
They are able to recognize a market's demand for their products or services better than the real estate directors of large chains. Those directors generally are bombarded with leasing brochures and calls from brokers and owners. To cut through the clutter, they have to eliminate many locations based on strict site-selection criteria. As markets become more overbuilt, the strip centers in those markets grow increasingly similar to each other in terms of tenant mix. Competition to attract the finite number of customers residing in a given locality is very tough.