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Over a million restaurants in the United States generate billions in sales each year. Commercial property owners know that having a visible and successful restaurant is not only lucrative, but also can be an amenity that improves the image of the property and provides an essential service to residents and other tenants or occupants of an office building, shopping center, or mixed-use project, not to mention the local community. However, a large number of all new restaur...

Don’t be surprised if a prospective tenant asks you to give it early access to its space before all aspects of your deal are finalized. Some tenants are confident that their financing will go through and that other issues will be resolved without incident. A common reason in retail leasing for tenants to ask for the right to get into the space early is to avoid delays in opening. While it makes sense, and you might want to accommodate a tenant that brings somethin...

Violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) can be costly for commercial real estate owners. It’s a complicated law with nuances that create pitfalls for owners. While the ADA is detailed in terms of spelling out under what circumstances a building’s or a tenant’s space must be altered to make it accessible to people with disabilities, it doesn’t say who is responsible for making and paying for these alterations. That is, are owners or te...

The design, practicality, and price of interior retail space are big ticket items when a tenant is deciding to lease space in a shopping center. But what a tenant can get and for what price doesn’t matter if other elements at the center don’t work for the tenant. Just as landlords like certainty on their side of the deal—and, accordingly, try to use lease forms that achieve that goal—tenants want to make sure that the crucial items they fought fo...

The number of violent crimes taking place at public venues in recent years has skyrocketed, with the Oct. 1 mass shooting of concert-goers in Las Vegas being the biggest attack in United States history. Owners of public spaces are reevaluating their security, some by asking outside security firms to review their security systems and make recommendations for improvement.

When you think about settling a dispute with a tenant without going to court, arbitration as an alternate dispute resolution method might immediately come to mind. That’s because arbitration is widely known and talked about in commercial real estate. But before you pursue arbitration, consider resolving a dispute by submitting the dispute to mediation.

Owning a large retail or office building property can be lucrative. After all, if the rent rate is based on the square footage that a tenant rents, a vast space has the potential to pull in more money than a small one. But profiting from the sheer size of your property isn’t a given. To collect rent, you need a tenant, and if you can’t find one, you’ll have vacant space on your hands. If you’ve thought about what you can do with that space, consi...

Mixed-use properties have become ubiquitous in most areas of the country. Often, they make the most of a property’s layout, especially in tight urban neighborhoods—providing easy-to-access commercial space on a first floor and residential units on the floors above so no space is wasted. And if leases are drafted that protect landlords from both typical lease issues as well as some limited mixed-use-specific angles, they can be financially advantageous.

The goal when leasing to tenants at your center—and especially those that pay percentage rent—is to pick businesses that draw the most customers. If a product or service is a “favorite” of a customer, there’ll be repeat business. For this reason, leases with nationally branded retail franchise tenants can be a real boon to a shopping center. A recognizable coffee, donut, or hamburger restaurant can become a great traffic generator that help...

With the failure rate of new restaurants hovering around 59 percent in the first three years of opening, it’s not surprising that restaurant owners are trying to come up with a hook—a theme, a specific type of ambiance, or discounts for certain groups or time periods in the day or evening. A trend that has gained so much momentum that it’s no longer a novel concept—and is somewhat expected in “cute” or bustling neighborhoods—is ...