Retail Retold

Commercial real estate has entered a new era where execution, partnership, and long-term thinking have become the industry's greatest competitive advantages. In commercial real estate, everyone talks about capital. Not enough people talk about partnership. That's what makes the relationship between DLC and Temerity Strategic Partners different. Recorded from DLC's new media studio in Elmsford, New...

Is EV charging becoming an essential retail amenity? Electric vehicles have become impossible to ignore, but one of the biggest conversations isn't happening inside the car. It's happening in the parking lot. As EV adoption continues to grow, retail real estate is becoming an increasingly important part of the charging network. Chris Ressa sits down with Scott Levitan , Executive Vice President of...

The market has evolved. The questions are just as relevant. A Retail Retold Replay looking back at retail in 2024. We're throwing it back to ICSC 2024 with James Cook , Americas Director of Retail Research at JLL and host of the Where We Buy podcast. From the DLC booth in Las Vegas, James and Chris Ressa shared a quick and impactful conversation on the trends shaping retail real estate, from the c...

Just how niche is the secondhand retail market? Secondhand retail is one of the fastest-growing forces in retail, with the market expected to approach $80 billion by 2030. According to America's Thrift CEO Chris Homewood, that scale would make the category larger than the GDP of more than 130 countries. But the story is bigger than growth. As consumers spend more of their lives in digital environm...

How Tahini's is Winning the Race for Growth For growing brands, expansion is the goal. The real question is how you get there. At a time when restaurant concepts are racing to sign development deals, enter major markets, and announce aggressive expansion plans, Tahini's is taking a different approach. The Mediterranean fast-casual brand is growing quickly across North America, but the strategy beh...

What happens when experience becomes perspective? Every year, thousands of retail real estate professionals descend on Las Vegas looking for answers. Where are rents headed? Who's expanding? What's the next opportunity? Which relationships will create the next great deal? But before the meetings begin and before the convention floor opens, there's a more important question worth asking: What actua...

The predictions that looked a lot more like reality on the show floor. Everyone arrives at ICSC with predictions. The real question is which ones survive contact with 25,000 people on the show floor. Chris Ressa and CBRE's Karly Iacono weren't just attending ICSC Las Vegas. They were in the middle of it. Between meetings, deal discussions, and serving as panelists at the inaugural ICSC+PROPTech ev...

The retail real estate industry is entering ICSC Las Vegas with momentum, confidence, and a fundamentally different supply-demand dynamic. Recorded live from the SiriusXM Studios at Wynn Las Vegas ahead of ICSC Las Vegas 2026, this special episode of Retail Retold brings together two of the industry’s most influential voices: Tom McGee, President and CEO of ICSC, and Adam Ifshin, Founder and CEO o...

From the SiriusXM Studio at Wynn: Retail’s Next Big Move Broadcast live from the SiriusXM Studios at the Wynn Las Vegas and kicking off ICSC Las Vegas, Retail Retold stepped onto one of the biggest stages in the industry for a special conversation between Chris Ressa and DLC Founder and CEO Adam Ifshin . As Adam put it during the recording: “What is more fitting for Retail Retold to be the pregame...

Retail leasing could be entering a completely different era of speed. Anyone who has worked on retail leases knows the process can feel endless. Versions flying back and forth. Redlines buried in email chains. Hours spent drafting language that’s been negotiated a hundred times before. And somehow, despite all the technology in the world, a huge part of the leasing process still feels manual. Davi...

What does an AI-powered retail organization actually look like? Retail real estate has spent decades trying to optimize speed, scale, and execution. Now AI is forcing the industry to rethink all three. Surfaice Pro is taking this to a different level using mission-critical systems engineering to solve for issues along the store lifecycle, from leasing, through construction, and real estate. Joe Va...

As ICSC Las Vegas approaches, one theme is expected to rise above the rest: dealmaking. On the surface, the story looks simple. Retail fundamentals remain strong. Vacancy is near historic lows. Construction costs continue to limit new supply. Capital is returning to the sector. But beneath that headline, the real conversation begins. Demand is building from every direction. Buyers have capital to...

Insights into evolving market conditions Retail real estate isn’t defined by one trend right now. It’s being shaped by a mix of forces all hitting at once. Two of CBRE’s top retail leaders, Laura Barr and Scott Schnuckel , join Chris Ressa to dive into what’s actually happening across the industry, from leasing and retailer behavior to talent, data, and the broader market environment. These are th...

A disciplined pipeline and strategic site selection approach are enabling growth despite limited supply Retail real estate didn’t change as much as people thought. The fundamentals never left. What changed is how precisely you have to execute them. Jim Lampassi , Senior Vice President of Real Estate & Construction at Academy Sports + Outdoors, has spent 45 years in site selection and developme...

A disciplined approach to product, experience, and real estate is fueling a fast-growing food and beverage concept Palmetto Superfoods didn’t grow by chasing trends. It grew by challenging them. Hessam Shirmohammadi , co-founder and COO, built the brand around a simple idea: if the product is real and the experience is intentional, customers don’t just visit, they come back daily. What started in...

A different background, and a different lens on retail real estate Careers aren’t linear. And the best ones usually evolve. Anya Wolf didn’t start in retail real estate. Her background was in art, including studio work, art history, and hands-on experience in galleries and education. She was fully immersed in a creative path and exploring what that future could look like. But over time, she gained...

What if the biggest World Cup winners aren’t the teams? The next major tailwind for retail real estate isn’t coming from policy, rates, or supply it’s coming from global demand. The World Cup is set to drive one of the largest concentrated waves of consumer activity the U.S. has seen in years. But this isn’t just about packed stadiums. It’s about what happens around them and long after. We’re look...

Are you solving the problem, or just applying? How people get hired and what companies actually value is shifting fast. Cary Beale , one of the most active recruiters in retail real estate at Poline Search Partners , sees the disconnect every day. Companies want people in the office. Candidates want flexibility. Everyone says they want the “best talent,” but the definition of that talent isn’t ali...

Can a niche hobby become a viable retail concept? The golf industry quietly experienced one of the biggest participation surges in decades during the pandemic. Millions of people picked up clubs for the first time, and the ripple effects are still reshaping the business of golf, from course operations to the rise of indoor golf concepts. This Retail Retold Replay revisits Chris Ressa’s conversatio...

What did Adam and Chris get right about retail in 2024? Back in 2024, Chris Ressa sat down with DLC CEO Adam Ifshin in Las Vegas ahead of ICSC to talk about a retail market that was already showing unusual strength. Looking back from 2026, that conversation reads less like commentary and more like an early signal of where open-air retail was headed. At the time, Adam laid out a clear case: open-ai...

Is 2026 about to be the biggest year for retail real estate in decades? Retail real estate doesn’t move in a vacuum. It moves when consumers have a reason to act. 2026 is shaping up to be one of the strongest demand environments in decades because three massive global catalysts are converging at the same time: the World Cup, the Winter Olympics tailwind, and America’s 250th anniversary. Major live...

Why is grocery-anchored retail still the most resilient asset class in 2026? Grocery-anchored retail continues to prove why it remains one of the most durable and coveted asset classes in commercial real estate. Despite persistent narratives around online grocery, delivery economics, and shifting consumer behavior, grocery real estate entered 2026 from a position of strength, not disruption. Sales...

What does it take to win a competitive retail LOI today? Retail leases are moving fast again, and in East Tennessee, they are moving faster than most people think is possible. Chris Ressa talks with Lindsey Barden , founder of Dark Horse CRE, a tenant-rep-only broker covering Knoxville, Chattanooga, and the Tri-Cities. Her view from the ground is simple: vacancy is extremely low, the best spaces t...

What do long-term franchise operators know that others miss? Longevity in retail is earned, not engineered. Chris Ressa and David Habas , Managing Partner at HK Enterprises , unpack what it actually takes to build and operate a service retail business over decades, cycles, and constant change. Habas brings nearly 30 years of franchising experience and a rare dual lens as both an operator and someo...

What Does It Mean to Think Like an Owner in Property Management? Retail real estate is not won in boardrooms. It is won in the field. Chris Ressa sits down with Tine Helton, Regional Property Manager at DLC, to talk about the work that actually keeps open-air retail centers running across Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. From tenant relationships to infrastructure issues, Tine walks through what it me...