Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/58695
THE COMMON AREA reputation for safety and liquidity, he says. Global investment last year rose 14 percent from the year before, to $727 billion, the firm says. The Americas accounted for $235.7 bil- lion of that, up 49 percent from 2010, driven mainly by the U.S., Mexico and Chile. As a result, commer- cial property volume is now 83 percent over the 2009 low. North American invest- ment rose 52 percent, versus a 17 percent increase in Europe and the Middle East, 9 percent in Latin America and just 0.5 percent in the Asia-Pacific. And though China remains the world's largest commercial property investment market, its lead over the U.S. has dropped from 153 percent to 57 percent, Cushman & Wake- field reports. In New York City specifically, the volume of property deals last year totaled $25.8 billion, with an additional $3.1 billion currently under contract, Cushman & Wakefield says, versus $13.7 billion in total for the year before. Bestseller Gladwell to speak at RECon Who's afraid of the big bad Internet? Landlords shouldn't be, says writer Malcolm Gladwell, who will speak at Sunday's "Block- buster" opening session at RECon this year (1 p.m. on 10 SCT / APRIL 2012 Gladwell is a writer for The New Yorker and a best-selling author. His books include The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Dif- ference; Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking; and Outliers: The Story of Success. Sunday, May 20). The media has credited social media for spurring street protests in Iran and a revolution in Egypt, among other places, but that credit is largely mis- placed, he says. What creates change is people's willing- ness to turn out and, all too often, put their lives on the line, he says. Without that, nothing would have hap- pened in either Iran, Egypt or, for that matter, America's South during the 1960s. The Internet is not a revolution in itself, much less a social revolution; it is only a tool, he argues. Similarly, while the World Wide Web offers convenient shopping, it can't pro- vide the experience of walking around a store or a mall. "A shopping center can play these roles institutionally," he told SCT. "The opportunity is in creat- ing and providing a qualitative and differ- entiated experience." Gladwell will not be the only luminary speaking at RECon this year. Former Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Trent Lott (R-MS) will de- bate, and Leslie Wexner, founder of Limited Brands, will discuss the current state of retail, trends and his ex- pectations for the future. Outlet centers master social media The use of social media by shopping centers leveled off last year, indicating that the trend may have matured, according to a survey by research firm Alexander Babbage. The survey of some 1,600 American shopping centers showed that as of the fourth quarter nearly 70 percent of properties mea- suring 300,000 square feet or larger used Facebook to reach shoppers, and about 55 percent used Twitter, up 20 percent from a year ago in both cases. But much of that growthwas driven by Premium Outlets' introduc- tion of a shared Facebook page in the first quarter of last year. Through the rest of 2011 Facebook and Twitter use among the respondent shopping centers grew just 1 percent. Some actually termi- nated their Facebook pages in the past year. Babbage says the adop- tion of social media is likely to slow considerably this year, at least as concerns Facebook and Twitter, the most popu- lar platforms. Outlet centers now have the largest social- media presence of all retail property types (83 percent use Facebook and Twitter), followed by super-regional malls (73 percent use Face- book and Twitter). SCT