How to attract a National or Franchise Tenant

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1) Get a premium subscription for Retail Lease Trac (http://www.retailleasetrac.com) and contact tenants and/or their tenant rep brokers seeking similar space in your market directly. 2) Join the International Council of Shopping Centers (http://icsc.org) and pitch the deal to prospective tenants/their tenant rep brokers at their conventions, especially RECON, which is their primary convention held every May in Vegas. Incredible deal-making conference. This is what every retail needs to see in order to properly assess the viability of a prospective retail site: -Signalized corner, soft corner or mid block -Visibility, frontage and signage -Parking -Ingress/egress -Traffic counts -Population density in a 1, 3 and 5-mile radius -Ditto for median household income -Ditto for ethnic breakdown -Ditto for population growth rate -Ditto for residential and commercial development projects in the pipeline -Proximity to complementary national retailers -Proximity to direct competitors -Proximity to existing locations in the trade area -Lease structure (absolute NNN, modified NNN or NN for build to suits/reverse build to suits; or ground lease) -Rental rate -TI allowance, if any, for aforementioned BTS/Reverse BTS leases

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You need a tenant rep retail leasing broker. Lot's of them out there.

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It can be a bonus to have a national tenant at below market rents when you sell later. A concern with national tenants is often that the owner/developer spent and gave heavy TI credits in exchange for the tenant agreeing to above market rents on the lease.The owner does this to try and sell for more on the back end. Problem is if the national tenant goes out you are then looking at a cap rate drop on value.When analyzing a national tenant you have to be careful on their credit and their current debt load and future expansion plans. Additionally it makes a difference if the national brand parent corp. is guaranteeing the lease, subsidiary of corporate guarantee, large franchisee, or small franchisee. All these things affect value along with any early termination rights of the primary lease term, rental increase amounts, and if rent increases are annually or every 3 or 5 years when they go up.I see some owners just try hard to get a national tenant in thinking they will never sell it later. Then when they need to sell they have all of these negative items in the lease that really affects being able to sell the property and financing for the buyer. So an owner when crafting a lease to put a tenant in really needs to think about the long term exit versus just the immediate benefit in the short term. Once the tenant signs the lease it is very hard to get them to change anything and generally they are in the driver's seat.How much leverage you have against a national tenant will depend on your area and location of your dirt. If the tenant has multiple choices for site selections in the area and they are all about equal in terms of traffic counts, sight lines, access to the site in and out,etc. then tenant will be tougher to negotiate with. If you know the area and know your site is the superior site and the tenant has limited options that match their search criteria then multiple national tenants might be interested in the dirt and you can play them off of each other to craft the best lease possible for yourself. You need to know at what cap rates certain tenants bring in value to your site and how much rent they pay. Some food places now want a larger area for land parking and a smaller actual building as most sales are going through the drive-thru. The problem is they are paying lease rental rates per sq ft on the building and if your smart also the patio space as that is a revenue sales generator for them depending on the weather.

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Everyone above gave solid and good advice. If you are still in need of Landlord representation feel free to reach out to me. We have a retail shopping center for sale in your area and specialize in in the sale /lease of Triple Net Investment. nnnig.com

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I am a commercial lawyer here in Southern California and one thing I have seen lately at least in the western states are redevelopment of older strip malls. Sometimes it is just a face lift and other times a complete scrape and build. It really depends on what is happening in the area. You might want to consider what the trends are in the area so you can make sure you are in step with those since these leases are typically 20-30 years.We have development companies in our area that either purchase outright or lease out-parcels and demolish the old building and will build a new shop building with multiple tenants. For example your parcel might be able to handle several 1,000-2,000 square foot shops like Starbucks, Wingstop, AT&T, or other chains that will compliment what is already there in the area.Good luck with your project.

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Thank you, I absolutely will.

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Absolutely Adina! Feel free to contact me tomorrow if you have a moment.

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@Michael KnudsenI too have a few commercial properties I think may be very attractive to a national tenant. Would you mind looking at them for me?

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Thanks again. What a great resource this BP is. I have been asking local commercial realtors and getting blank stares. I may still go with demising and leasing with smaller mom and pops but finding a larger franchise or national company is something I will try first.

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William, I'm an active retail net lease investment broker with a solid background in shopping center leasing dating back to my days at CBRE. I'd be happy to take a look at the property and give you at least an initial assessment yon which tenants I think you should contact. If it's a former Goodyear site, I'm assuming that the building has service bays? You might want to reach out to Tires Plus first if they aren't in the area. They are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bridgestone Firestone Retail Operations LLC, the sole licensed reseller for Bridgestone Firestone in North America. While they are a private company, they have thousands of locations nationally and the parent company guarantees their leases. If you land those guys, you could flip the deal for a nice profit. I probably have a buyer for that! Regardless, I would recommend that you hire a landlord rep broker who has a firm grasp on rental rates in the local market and also specializes in leasing single and multi tenant retail centers that attract national tenants. CBRE is probably your best bet, because they will have connections with the top retailers. Feel free to DM me.