Samtmann & ICSC

    Rob Samtmann, Principal at Equity Retail Brokers, was requested to teach a Best Practices course during ICSC’s March 2017 University on the campus of The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.  Retail Brokerage Best Practices topics covered included the following: The job and enjoying your profession Entrepreneurial approach to working every day Playing at […]

hhgregg Closure List

Fortune.com Article Retailer Hhgregg Is Closing a Lot of Stores and Cutting a Lot of Jobs As brick-and-mortar retailers struggle with online competitors, home appliances seller hhgregg is shrinking fast in a bid to turn around. The company announced Thursday it would close 40% of its stores and three distribution centers by mid-April. About 1,500 jobs are expected to […]

Philadelphia Region Overview

          We have had the pleasure of introducing many national retailers and restaurants to eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware.  Many of those clients are from other parts of the country and we needed to provide an overview of the market in order to give them a flavor of the […]

Warm Dark Shell

The Challenge One of my tenants wanted to lease the end cap of a proposed pad building with a drive-thru. The space was available. The tenant and landlord were both interested. The tenant’s workletter was rather involved. The Landlord’s construction estimates were taking a notable amount of time and LOI negotiations had stalled. Early indications […]

Wendy’s Wants to Add 1000 Units by 2020

Nation’s Restaurant News Article To get bigger, The Wendy’s Co. is getting smaller. The Dublin, Ohio-based burger chain wants to add another 1,000 locations by 2020, executives told investors on Thursday. One strategy the company plans to use to encourage that growth is a new, more flexible design that will enable Wendy’s to go into […]

150 Sears & Kmart Stores to Close

This article is a good resource for the state of current affairs at Sears & Kmart. Sears Holdings on Wednesday announced it has entered into a $500 million committed secured loan facility, maturing in July 2020, with Seritage, its subsidiary real estate investment trust. Some $321 million was funded under the loan facility Wednesday and […]

Pick Up the Phone & Put Down the Email

  Talking to someone directly is so much better than email.  You get to hear the inflection in their voice.  You get to talk things out and work through issues.  You get to achieve goals in a fraction of the time it would take to do it via email.        Oh, and by […]

Starbucks Expanding

Starbucks opening more domestic stores, stores in China, and their new high-end Reserve stores.  ICSC Article QSR Magazine Article