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Shopping Centers Today -> November 2001
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AMERICAS OFFER OPPORTUNITY AMID CHALLENGES
By Donna Mitchell
Despite economic problems that continue to afflict some parts of the region, attendance is expected to increase at this year’s ICSC Conference of the Americas, an indication that opportunities continue to abound, organizers say. ICSC is expecting 400 delegates at this year’s conference, which will be held Nov. 11-13 in Bal Harbour, Fla., amounting to a 10% increase over the 1999 meeting; Conference of the Americas is held every other year.
Even though Argentina and Brazil continue to struggle with fiscal crises, the region offers extraordinary promise and opportunity, especially for retail, with the growth of a young, sophisticated and increasingly wealthy middle class, noted ICSC’s Scott Harris, staff vice president/international. “The region is becoming a viable retail market, and the demographics are favorable,” Harris said.
The conference is designed to foster growth in the region, and Harris said he expects it to attract a significant contingent of pension funds interested in retail real estate developments and retailers.
Mexico, in particular, has seen a robust expansion of its shopping center industry, and is expected to receive plenty of attention from the delegates, organizers say. One reason for the growth: Mexican investors, both individual and institutional, are finding retail real estate projects to be more attractive investments, especially given that banks are paying low interest rates on deposit accounts. Investor interest in real estate hasn’t been so keen in some 40 years, and this has boosted the number of retail real estate developers there, according to Miguel Bordes Aznar, CEO at the Real Estate Division of Mexico City-based Liverpool, a large chain carrying apparel and fashions for the home.
ICSC also has established a base in Mexico, with the opening in July of an office headed by Xavier Pumarejo in Mexico City. ICSC also is planning to open an office in Buenos Aires in January 2002, according to Harris.
Besides a look at the economies of various states, topics at the conference will include shopping center design trends, the calculation of rent and maintenance costs, and ideal tenant mixes.
There also will be some talk about how September’s attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., will affect consumer confidence in the United States and Latin America, predicted Paul Frederick Duval, president of Shopinvest Ltd., Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“In Brazil, an extremely pro-American country, the shopping center industry is imported from the United States,” Duval said. “Everyone is concerned about what this means to the global economy, particularly to emerging nations.”
For its part, Duval said, Brazil has seen a significant influx of U.S. and overseas retailers into the nation’s shopping centers, ranging from Wal-Mart to Tiffany’s and Ralph Lauren. That touches on one slated session in particular: “Home Grown Talent: Latin America’s New Retail Concepts,” where panelists will advance the cause of innovative Latin American retailers in a market where many developers apparently look to foreign retailers to differentiate their centers from the competition.
As for Argentina, malls there had been used exclusively as places to buy merchandise. But now patrons embrace them as purveyors of services, locales where they can socialize and be entertained, said Alberto Lipare, a general manager for Camara Argentina de Shopping Centers, the country’s retail development trade association.
The three-day event, which will be held at the Sheraton Bal Harbour, will follow the same format as in the past: Attendees will spend the opening day, Sunday, touring several retail projects in South Florida, including CocoWalk in Coconut Grove and Dolphin Mall in Miami. The Deal Making and Trade Exposition will be open after panel discussions on Monday and Tuesday. ICSC expects about 19 exhibitors, who will occupy 28 booths.
The conference wraps up on Tuesday evening with a cocktail reception held in conjunction with the opening reception for the South Florida Idea Exchange.
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