Bullish on the big apple: A deep dive into NYC retail real estate
Guest: Ariel Schuster
Topics: New York City, retail leasing, Aritzia, work from home
In this weeks episode, Chris sits down with Ariel Schuster, Vice Chairman at Newmark and an an expert on NYC retail real estate.
What You’ll Learn
- What is the state of retail real estate in NYC today?
- Which NYC sub-markets are geographic hotspots for retail leasing? Why those places specifically?
- Was there a difference between luxury retail recovery and necessity-based retail recovery?
- What is the most desired sub-market in NYC that retailers are flocking to?
- How prevalent is the return to office push in NYC?
- How was Aritzia able to get ahead of the curve in the NYC real estate market?
About Retail Retold
The Retail Retold Podcast highlights community retailer stories from across the country and gives a behind-the-scenes perspective from business leaders in both retail and real estate industries. The show’s episodes contain valuable insights that help solve the needs of entrepreneurs and real estate pros. Join host Chris Ressa and new guests weekly for amazing insights and thought-provoking stories.
Transcript:
Chris Ressa 00:00
This is Retail Retold, the story of how that store ended up in your neighborhood. I’m your host, Chris Ressa. And I invite you to join my conversation with some of the retail industry’s biggest influencers. This podcast is brought to you by DLC Management.
Chris Ressa 00:02
Welcome to retail retold everyone today I’m joined by Ariel Schuster, Vice Chairman at Newmark. I’m excited for him to be here. Welcome to the show. Ariel.
Ariel Schuster 00:10
Thank you. Thank you. It’s been probably three and a half or almost four years since our, our last podcast.
Chris Ressa 00:18
So don’t feel bad about that. Because you’re one of I would say I have to count. But it’s under 10 in the number of repeats we’ve had. So you’re in, you’re in good company that you’re on for a second time.
Ariel Schuster 00:38
Well, I appreciate that. It was a world away back then.
Chris Ressa 00:42
It was a world away. So Ariel to refresh everyone’s memory. Tell everybody who you are and what you do.
Ariel Schuster 00:51
Sure. So I’m 23 years in this business. First 18 years with a company called RKF. We sold our company to Newmark five and a half years ago, based in New York City, representing retailers and landlords in New York and we do some national work. I think I’m kind of known for New York City retail leasing. I have very strong opinions about the market. Then again I’m wearing two different hats, whether it’s representing landlords like SL green and Brookfield, or retailers, everybody from Manolo Blahnik to The Gap. So we’re a team of about 15 people here, our office is across the street from Grand Central.
Chris Ressa 01:37
So let, let’s just dive in. Because I think this is really interesting. I want you on this show because you’re Retail Retold’s New York City retail expert. And if you went around and you flew into other cities, you would hear some negativity about what’s happening in New York City. And in particular, you would hear like, what’s going on with the retail there, there’s, there’s still an opinion there’s vacant storefronts everywhere. And you have a different take. And you’re living and breathing it. You live there, you work there. And you’re making a ton of deals there. So start from the top bring me a little granular what’s going on in New York City? Overall.
Ariel Schuster 02:24
Yeah, well, I think it’s, you know, we do hear that when we talk to people that have not been to New York or not too familiar with what’s going on. And the reality is the exact opposite. You know, to take a step back, the way I talk about New York City Real Estate is you go all the way back to kind of ’08 ’09 When the world was ending. Really quickly, New York recovered and 2010 to 2017, rents went up 10-15% a year it was madness. Every space leased, every tenant was chasing, people were willing to sign up for leases that didn’t make sense. And then the music stopped in like 2016 2017. And it was just a freefall for fourish years. COVID gets a lot of attention.
I don’t think it was as impactful as just overall, online shopping versus brick-and-mortar. And I can get into that a little further. But basically, sometime in early 2021, we felt the rebound. And what’s been interesting, and I’ve never seen this before, is New York City moved geographically. So the first mover was Soho, and it just caught fire. And there’s almost no availability left down in Soho. Then it moved and Flatiron District heated up, then Columbus Avenue, upper west. Now, Madison now fifth. So overall, rents are still off their 2017 Peak. But in terms of activity, in terms of vacancies, in terms of cities being created, the markets been as active in the last 24 months than it has ever been 25 years. So the velocity is there, stores are getting filled in.
And now when tenants come back after being gone for a year or two years, they’re seeing how many deals have been done. I mean, you you look, you look at Soho Broadway, that sub-market from 2017 to 2020, had one lease done, on the whole street. There was 14 leases done in the last 18 months. So you know, there’s no doubt that New York City is back from a retail perspective. Tourism is pretty close to the height. Residential rents are high, the highest they’ve ever been, you know, people are spending more on their apartments. The office, return to office is something I can talk about for five hours. And it’s very interesting. It’s by sector, many of the tech companies are slower to return than the banking people, but generally speaking, New York is in a really good place from a retail perspective.
Chris Ressa 05:05
So you mentioned, well, let’s focus on the real estate. So why was Soho first, what happened? You know, for those who don’t know, Manhattan’s actually pretty neighborhoody, and Soho coming first, heating up, why did that happen?
Ariel Schuster 05:27
So I think what’s happened is, and taking a step back even further, as I think what’s happening now is online shopping has proved to be much more clumsy and cumbersome than people anticipated. So I think in 2018, 2019, 2020, there was a sense that online was going to replace brick and mortar. And between the Apple privacy laws, which means the ads can’t, you can’t really track to see if they’re effective. The cost of shipping, the returns, the environmental impact of these boxes going back and forth.
It seems to me that a lot of the brands, whether it’s direct consumer brands, or the big companies have made a decision that they’re better off allocating their capital towards brick and mortar. So there was just a macro trend to adding more doors all of a sudden, and to answer your question specifically, Soho has it all. Soho has a New York customer, it has the tourist, it has the influencer impact. It’s geographically in a great place. And it has, you know, it’s basically an outdoor mall. So it has he has a lot of things going for it and luxury, which carried I think, a lot of the, of the growth in last couple years all over the country, you know, luxury really doubled down on Soho.
Chris Ressa 06:44
Got it. I could talk about why physical’s here to stay and online is, you know, I was fighting that narrative that online was going to kill stores for a long time. And it’s one area that I think it’s now the tailwind. I was proven right that the store is quite candidly, the store is where the profit is, all these retailers are allocating both at the high end, the low-end, the middle, allocating significantly more dollars now toward physical stores than they had been. And they’re playing catch up. They’re leasing space. But now to my second question, how are they performing? How are all these retailers that are opening these stores? How are they performing?
Ariel Schuster 07:23
They’re performing really well. The reality is at these rents where the deals have been done the last 18 months, they’re rents that are still off of the earlier, the highs, so their rents, people can make money, you know, you’re not hearing tenants saying we got to make sign a lease because we have to be in the market. They’re saying based on the comps we have, the sales comps that is, we can be profitable. I’ll tell you that a lot of the sales numbers we hear from our retailers are 10-15%, higher than 2019.
Chris Ressa 07:52
That’s, that’s fantastic. And so the days of the retailer, paying whatever it took to get the fancy, basically, the store was a billboard, are those days over.
Ariel Schuster 08:06
They’re almost over, you know, every once in a while you hear about deal getting done on Fifth Avenue or Times Square that doesn’t necessarily make sense from a profitability perspective. But 99.5% of leases getting signed, are where the expectation is to be profitable.
Chris Ressa 08:26
Okay. And when did that shift like before COVID? Or was that was that shift happening before COVID? Or was that catalyst from COVID?
Ariel Schuster 08:36
There was never that many instances where retailers were actually willing to have a money losing store. I think that was always an exception to the rule. So it was never that big a part of the of the conversation to be honest with you.
Chris Ressa 08:50
Got it. Okay, so Soho heats up. And at that point as Soho’s heating up? Did you think that was going to be it or did you think like it was going to start to trickle into some of the other neighborhoods?
Ariel Schuster 09:05
Well, you know, Flatiron is interesting, because Flatiron for those who know New York tracks very well with Soho, a lot of brands that are in Soho are also in Flatiron. So I did expect that to happen because there’s so many similarities. But the velocity of it was really surprising. I mean, I just to go back to Broadway Soho for a minute, you know, in 2019, you know, there’s 42% availability rate on Broadway Soho, you take a tenant down to look, to tour, and you’d have two of these books, giant books with available spaces, and there’s this psychological impact of it, which is why would we open a store where to every two of every seven stores is available, you know who’s coming in?
And there was nobody coming in. Once Broadway filled in those 3-4-5-6-7 deals happening. All of a sudden it was clear that was going to continue, and I think that retailers saw that and said, well, what should we be thinking about next? And Flatiron and was next. So there was that wave that we sensed was happening. And we’re sensing it now, because we’re seeing other markets are picking up now that have not filled in yet.
Chris Ressa 10:20
How about like, parts of the city that aren’t the high-end? That are just the everyday needs-based retailers? Call it value retailers in the city. Is that pretty vacant? Or is that occupied?
Ariel Schuster 10:36
So it’s a bit all over the place. The neighborhoods stayed great throughout, because, because of the work from home, right, so people are typically, not me, but a lot of people are working three days a week in the office there. And so if you’re living in Upper East, Upper West, you’re actually in your home more. So those neighborhoods held up. The retail, the service retail, they’ve held up and companies like Sweetgreen and Chipotle, their sales in the neighborhoods are better than they were before.
You know, the one area that we have to be thoughtful about is, you know, we’re in Grand Central, right. So the retail and especially food that relies on the office worker, they’ve had to really change how they operate. You know, Friday at Cava is very different than Wednesday at Cava. So, you know, I think in markets like downtown, financial district, grand central, midtown west. That is a market where we’ve seen recovery, but certainly operationally it’s different. And you shouldn’t staff the same way on a Friday, as you would on a Wednesday, and before COVID it was different. So that’s the one thing that has changed. But the normal non-luxury markets have held up really well.
Chris Ressa 11:50
Okay, that’s good to hear, too. So right now, outside of Soho, Flatiron, what’s like the most desired spot where are retailers, like gravitating to?
Ariel Schuster 12:06
I mean, what’s happened on Madison has been really surprising. So Madison Avenue, you know, historically has been the luxury market. It’s a very long strip, right? It’s 57th Street 72nd street has always been called the golden part. But it now actually really goes to 79th. And frankly goes to 86th street, so you have a mile of avenue, it’s actually the longest stretch of a market, which means there’s a lot of storefronts. So that’s a market where you would think supply and demand, it would be the hardest for that to come back, because there’s so much property, but that has been, that’s recovered tremendously. And it’s, you know, it’s by sector. So you have 57th Street to 63rd where Hermes is, and goes 63rd to 68th. So there’s little patches. But that’s really all filled in. And landlords are now raising rents and pushing back on concessions and forcing ten year deals. So that’s kind of the latest market that’s really returned to its glory days.
Chris Ressa 13:08
Okay well, appreciate the update there. You made a comment earlier, that you could talk for five hours on this work-from-home world we live in. And you mentioned obviously, it’s more challenging in the neighborhoods that are super office dependent, right, versus where people live in the city.
Chris Ressa 13:33
Throw it at me, what’s your work from home stance at the moment? Especially, and you said offline? For a broker, as a broker, you have a pretty interesting stance on work from home. Yeah.
Ariel Schuster 13:48
So when you and I spoke the first time I was in the Jersey Shore in my pajamas. Our team came back September of ’20. And we’re five days a week. You know, people have exceptions, when they have childcare issues, whatever, obviously, we’re not, you know, everybody could do whatever they want everybody’s independent contractors, but when I hire, it’s five days a week, it’s 7:30 in the office, it’s last one out. And that comes with a couple of different places.
The first is during COVID. Half our clients are real estate owners, right? So when you’re talking to SL Green, and Renedo and Brookfield, they’re in the office, right? So you can’t represent SL Green and be at the beach, you know, half-assing it. Pardon my French, you have to be in the office. So immediately moving back to the office because we have to, because we’re middlemen, and that’s reality. And then the truth is we’re in an information business, right? We’re constantly trading information, picking up information, that’s really the value we create. So, you know, I’ve forced our team to be back in the office and I think it’s been a huge advantage to our team because the Information is better. We’re working harder, we’re pushing each other.
And again, I think as brokers you have to be working, you have to be in the office, but then you have to go and look at that new store and check out the ceiling heights and check out what people doing differently. Because your clients are expecting you to do that. And I generally don’t believe, and I may be a dinosaur, but I don’t believe in our industry. You can work from home. I think, if you’re writing code, absolutely, if you’re an accountant, maybe. But as a real estate broker who trades in information. We are five days a week, and I can’t imagine that will ever change.
Chris Ressa 15:42
So I think a lot of brokers in America in all markets, let’s just say the entire country would say we get we have to be out in the field. That I think is pretty, you know, we have to be at properties. We have to meet clients. Got that. But the other part of it. I think you would hear a lot of pajamas on the beach is fine. And you think that in the office is where it’s at. So talk to that piece a bit.
Ariel Schuster 16:17
I think just a commitment to your business. I mean, I think I tell people, you know, this is a job. It’s not a hobby. And I think if you’re going to do it, you got to do it 100%. It’s just like ICSC, and I’m just talking to my team about ICSC. It’s like, you’re going to be there for 72 or 96 hours. It’s full time. Like there’s no off button. And ICSC I mean, that’s a sprint. But generally speaking, if you’re working four days a week, or five days a week, that’s 25% more. And it’s a compounding effect, right? Yeah, I’m seeing the compound effect. So it’s not like I’m working 25% more than somebody else. Every year it compounds and compounds. Our team, our young people are just better equipped than another brokerage firms, young people, that for three years have been semi-working from home half-days.
Chris Ressa 17:11
What about from a competing for talent perspective, because you’re in a place where I’m not gonna call you the dinosaur. But you are the exception not the rule on a five days in the office world.
Ariel Schuster 17:26
I admit, I’m a dinosaur, and I’m a happy dinosaur. Because I think the people who work in our team that do really well are ones who like the challenge, like the pressure, like, I mean, we don’t hire people who are uncertain about that. And we’re super clear. I mean, we couldn’t be any clearer about the expectation. And the truth is you lead by example, I’m in 7:30-8:00 the latest so it’s not like I’m telling these guys what to do and I’m in the Hamptons, you know, kitesurfing. So it’s, we’re all in it together. And I wouldn’t want to hire somebody who wants to not be in five days a week. And just to be clear, you’re in and then you’re out in the field all day long. Like we’re not sitting at our desks, you know, refreshing Costar, we’re out. But if you’re going to do it, you do do it right. I mean, we’re all on commission, right? So it’s like it’s your it’s your own money that you’re working for or not working for.
Chris Ressa 18:23
And how big of a contributor has that been to your team success over the last since 2021.
Ariel Schuster 18:32
I think it’s been hugely impactful, I really think it has made a really big difference. I think that our team is more is better positioned with better information. Because we’re in the office.
Chris Ressa 18:48
So I would say the following. I think that
Chris Ressa 18:59
We, whatever your industry you’re in, I think there’s a piece that you have to be with your clients, you have to be with, you know, for us, you have to be at properties.
Chris Ressa 19:15
I believe that the power of the human connection is unquantifiable. And being together, ideas come up. And people learn, information shared. And, you know, our general counsel gave an example when like this whole trend started happening, which was someone would ask a question, he’d come out of his office. He would answer the question like someone would email him. He would come out of his office, he would tell the person the answer to the question, but everyone out in the, you know, in their cubes would hear this, and they’d all be learning, and that’s taken away when everyone’s scattered at home, because they’re not there. And I thought that was an interesting perspective.
And so I believe in the power of the human connection, I do believe there is a place for working from home in a 2024 world. I think one, you made a good point which is like if that’s not for them, then they’re not for us. But it’s a very competitive talent driven world. And it is some, in some instances for some roles, you’re not even going to get a look because the competition’s giving you this. And so we’re work, we have a in three out two.
And what I would say is, more people come in, on their, they can work from home than I would have expected days. Because there’s power in the human connection. Sitting together in a room sharing ideas, being out in the field together is obviously much more impactful than having to schedule a Team’s or Zoom meeting and your right, that whole walk into the office next door is more valuable than people want to give credence to.
Ariel Schuster 21:29
Well, I’ll address that. I mean I’m a dinosaur, but I’m not blind dinosaur, you know. So I, I listened to Newmark’s, I go to all the Newmark office broker meetings, because I can learn a little bit from them. And through that, I do hear about the talent thing, right. So there’s definitely industries, where in order to get the best talent, you have to offer flexibility. And I believe that is the right move for those companies in their industries. And for you, the difference between you and me is your a principal and I’m a middleman. Right?
So principals should and can and do whatever they want to do, brokers should not. But we don’t have the luxury of being the principals. So again, going back to the SL Green, you know, because I’m looking at their office and Mark holiday who’s their CEO talked about, you know, his service providers being in the office. That is part of the job, the job is to be in the office.
But yeah, you’re you know, there are industries where the talent pool is in control, and you cannot force you can’t hire a 23 year old five days a week because he or she’s just not gonna do it. That’s a different environment than what we have here. I hire one to two people a year. And they know what they’re getting themselves into. And if they’re drawn to it, they’re gonna be great. And if they’re not, they’re not.
Chris Ressa 22:51
Okay, let’s move on to a retailer that I’m excited about Aritzia. Why don’t you tell us the story of Aritzia and New York real estate? Because I think this is interesting.
Ariel Schuster 23:06
Yeah well, so I’m super proud of of our relationship with Aritzia. But I think a lot of people who have nothing to do with the account have all kind of pointed to the fact that I think Aritzia was the best retail in terms of pouncing, and being ahead of the curve in New York City on the return. And this started, this started in their Soho deals, it all kind of correlates to the story I’ve been telling, you know, so they’ve had a store in Soho for 15 years. It’s a very great store for them on the corner of Burr and Spring. In March of 2020.
You know our first meeting for their new location was March 9, it was right when the world was getting squirrely, and then everybody went to different places and you know, for March, April, May of 2020 Aritzia and the owners of the new location, we were doing calls like, that was like when nobody knew was going on. That was truly pajamas zoom days. But Aritzia and all the credit goes to Karen James who was the head of real estate, you know, she she knew New York City was going to come back. And we used we used those year, year and a half of people really just sitting on the fence not really jumping in. And what Aritzia did was they greatly improved their real estate in New York City. So we did three kind of really big deals.
We signed the lease in Soho. And arguably the best corner in Soho 560 Broadway. In Flatiron, we moved the store from a mid block store on 16th Street to arguably the best corner of 19th and fifth, and then in Rock Center. We took an inline store and moved that to the corner. And that’s really all through Karen’s vision and understanding that New York City was going to come back. There was a moment in time, landlords were excited to get Aritzia and their credit and what they do for the street.
But that was again, that was a time when people were not willing to make those big commitments and Aritzia was. And, when you see these stores opening, these monster beautiful launches are on board with these huge corner locations. I can’t think of any other retailer that was as aggressive and was able to take advantage of the situation more than Aritzia was.
Chris Ressa 25:31
So it’s May of 2020. Is Karen saying, hey listen, this is my shot. I’m gonna go take advantage of this, and we’re gonna find better real estate at cheaper rents. Was it that was it aggressive like that?
Ariel Schuster 25:49
It was a, this is a great deal. Probably, won’t be able to see this happen again in the next decade. It’s a great location, let’s work 24 hours and get it done. And that deal is interesting, because, you know, we’re talking about specifically, like replacing the air conditioning unit on the roof. Nobody could get to New York City to even look at that. Right, you couldn’t get parts. So it’s like those logistical issues. A lot of people would have that would have turned them off. And Karen’s like, we got to keep going. We gotta keep going.
The lawyers were into it. So it was a these are great locations. New York is gonna come back, they probably won’t be here two years. Let’s do it now. Let’s do it smart. Let’s do fair deals. You know, let’s fly in, let’s meet with people. So yeah, I think there was it was a conscious decision to you know, we didn’t fall into these deals, it was a conscious decision to take advantage is not the right term, but to make the most of the moment. And again, the deals are all great. The landlords are super happy because Aritzia is a great tenant, great credit, they do beautiful build-out.
Chris Ressa 26:58
Are the stores doing better now than in the old locations?
Ariel Schuster 27:02
So two of them; Rock Center and Flatiron have not opened yet. Soho opened and now is doing a revamp. So I don’t have the answer. But next, the next time we do this in a year and a half, I’ll give you the answers. But they definitely will. I mean, these are unbelievable locations that we got.
Chris Ressa 27:21
That’s great. And, and so they lead the way in. And as you were saying before other retailers start to follow.
Ariel Schuster 27:27
Yeah, you know, we’ve had also had a really great experience with Arcteryx. So Arcteryx is a brand that has been in New York for a while, but you know, kind of similar storiy as in Flatiron. We moved them from an inline store to a corner. Soho they’re building out their biggest store, which is 13,000 square feet. And Rock Center we signed a big lease. So they were that’s another example. You know, they’re owned by Amir Sports, which also owns Wilson and Solomon.
So I think they had a very similar path of getting great real estate, getting in early, being aggressive. And it’s funny they were here this week. And we talked, we talked about some of the deals that have been done since they signed these leases, and how far the rents have moved up since they’ve signed their leases. And it’s it proved that our theory that they were getting in at the bottom.
Chris Ressa 28:17
Good for them. Yeah. The The one thing I wanted, so that was a great story super helpful. I don’t think a lot of people know that. So I think that’s like going to be some cool New York City retail real estate inside baseball that people are going to appreciate.
Chris Ressa 28:40
Going back, you made a comment earlier and you said you know, luxury was part of the you know, was a catalyst for the rise of you know, retail, I would say, you know I’m giving you my take, the I think generally retail has just had a great run, you know, in our space we’re in the value retail space, you know, the our retailers are TJ Maxx, Five Below, Ulta Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Ross and all these guys have been crushing it. And, you know, in suburban worlds competing for space. I think it is. I think retail generally is having a moment and retail real estate is having a moment and, you know, based on the narrative of the
Chris Ressa 29:34
E commerce being the tailwind not the headwind, it’s not the dirty word it used to be. And that there’s very little new construction of retail space and supply. I think this moment is gonna last longer than people think. We had a you know, we’ve had up and down for a while with retail apocalypse and all these things and I think You know, we’ve turned the corner as an industry. And I’m excited about that.
Ariel Schuster 30:04
Yeah well I mean, I’m talking a little bit about your world now. But you know, and I saw you at the ICSC open-air conference in New Orleans, which should be there every year, that place is magical. But, you know, I was not surprised because I knew it was happening. But it was so clearly a landlord’s market now. And the fact that because of interest rates and construction costs, the idea of people building new retail just seems very distant.
And you’re hearing from all the retailers that they are really pushing to add doors. Like the dynamic in those in those meetings was interesting. And so I think, yeah, I think you’re right, I think it’s not just New York City, the New York City bubble, that’s come back. It’s not just Florida, Texas, but it’s clear that in the suburbs, the sales are there, the US consumer is there. And I think that’s not to go on a complete tangent. But, you know, I was just in Europe, I spent a lot of time with our Europe, retail group, and a lot of their brands are saying to them, you know, we need to grow in the US because, you know, Europe is stagnant.
The Europe economy is stagnant. And the consumer there is not spending, and the US consumer is spending. So as they continue to spend, you know, these retailers continue to add doors. And in New York City, there is not more retail being built with a few exceptions. And the suburbs. Again, how challenging would it be for you guys to build a new center now it’d be almost impossible.
Chris Ressa 31:39
It’s almost an actual like, 300 foot power center in in a lot of ways is almost impossible. That happening, there’s only a few instances of that happening. And it’s it’s not traditional market conditions. It’s there’s some crazy public private financing that’s happening to get it started. But like, just on a on a pure like, I’m gonna build a shopping center and make a return no outside help. Just regular old like, I’m going to go to a bank, get a loan and build it like that is the returns on that are just so diluted in most places, it is not happening at all.
And but at the same time retailers are doing exceedingly well. And so we’re super bullish on suburbs, we own in the suburbs, we’re super bullish for the long term on the suburbs, we have been for a long time. And it’s continued to happen. The growth has continued to happen there. And the shopping centers evolved. There, the tenants are different. But doing seemingly well. And yeah, it’s the first time in a long time where it’s, you know, pretty, it’s really a landlord’s market. You know, in the value retail space. You don’t hear about this often, but I just heard of a scenario where there’s multiple tenants competing on a space and the landlord said, I don’t want to do this, we’re going to do a best and final offer. And you’re going to send me it and I’m just going to choose one.
I’m not going to negotiate just just like it was a purchase and sale I’m going to call for offers. You send me your LOI, whatever it is, there’s not going to be any going back and forth with it. You send me your best. And you’ll like this. There are I won’t mention names, but there was a retailer who was competing with a couple other retailers that were when I say competing not just for the space, but it was their actual competitors. And they put the rent that they wanted. And it was the greater of that or 50 cents higher than the other two offered. Just let and so that’s what’s going on in suburban open-air and, you know, in particular with value retailers, so yeah, I think you know, retails having a moment, man.
Ariel Schuster 33:58
Good because we had some dark days there. ’18 ’19 ’20
Chris Ressa 34:02
Yeah in ’20 Those were some dark days, man. Those were some dark days. So well listen. I really appreciate you doing this. You have fun at the comedy show tonight. Please let me know how it is. I’m gonna check out that show you told me to watch.
Ariel Schuster 34:18
And I’m sure I’ll see you in Las Vegas in six weeks.
Chris Ressa 34:20
I’ll see you there, man.
Ariel Schuster 34:21
All right. Well, thanks for having me.
Chris Ressa 34:22
Thank you.
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