Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
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28 S C T / J U N E 2 0 1 7 he pace of retail building has quickened this year after a soft 2016, with mall expansions, mixed-use property construction and a wide range of new gro- cery store and shopping center pad developments leading the advance. Dodge Data & Analytics predicts that 102 mil- lion square feet of new store and shopping center space will rise by the end of this year, up by about 5 percent from 2016, which in turn saw a 14 percent drop (97 million square feet) in starts from 2015. "The renovation side seems to be the place to be," said Robert A. Murray, a Dodge vice president and the firm's chief economist. "Average square feet for store projects continues to be low, but alteration val- ues trend upward." Among the high-profile expansions under way is the three-level retail wing and parking garage be- ing built at the high-profile Aventura (Fla.) Mall — already the state's largest mall, at 2.7 million square feet. The 315,000-square-foot addition will provide space for a two-story Topshop Topman and several destination restaurants. "There's a continuing effort to add large degrees of place-making to mall properties," said Brad Sand- ers, a Cleveland-based senior managing director at CBRE who oversees the firm's retail project man- agement business. The recently expanded Roosevelt Field mall, in Garden City, N.Y., which features new public spaces, an added wing containing several new-to-the-market retailers and a dining district with an outdoor patio, is a good example of the sort of property that expanding A-quality tenants