12 Ways to Increase the Value of Your Retail Real Estate Properties
The value of income-generating real estate is mostly derived from the net operating income or NOI for short. That is, your property’s operating income minus your operating expenses including property taxes but excluding taxes on earnings, principal and interest payments on loans, capital expenditures, depreciation and amortization. Take your NOI and divide it by the appropriate market-based capitalization rate and that gives you the value of your commercial real estate, whether it’s multifamily, office, industrial or retail. There are other approaches to valuation but the income approach is the best because the applied cap rate takes into account other properties with similar characteristics that have been sold recently. Universally speaking, the higher you can increase the NOI of your property, the more valuable your asset becomes. Here are 12 ways to increase your NOI:
1. Increase tenant rents in industry-acceptable proportion to retail sales; the higher your tenants’ sales, the more rent your tenants can afford.
2. Increase occupancy; all leasable spaces represent potential revenue.
3. Consider non-retail uses, such as medical, educational, multifamily residential, storage, etc.
4. Increase non-rental revenue; temporary tenants, vending, the roof and parking lot can represent potential income.
5. Turn non-leasable areas to leasable areas; you’ll be surprise how much this can boost your NOI.
6. Improve tenant recoveries; avoid leakage; fixed CAM or triple net rents have their pros and cons.
7. Monitor sales to ensure you’re collecting all that you’re owed in percentage rent; conduct audits, if necessary.
8. Control operating expenses, such as common area maintenance, rebid your service contracts annually.
9. Reduce cost of utilities; consider submetering, alternate providers of utilities, implement energy saving improvements that are good for the environment and your bottom line.
10. Reduce waste; increasing recycling cuts waste hauling costs and can generate revenue to offset costs.
11. Minimize insurance costs with an active risk management program.
12. Keep property taxes reasonable; monitor assessments to ensure the property is not being charged more than its fair share of taxes from excessive valuations; if so, mount a legal challenge.
All underperforming commercial properties need a full assessment to determine whether the property can benefit from a redevelopment to achieve its highest-and-best use based on market forces. Consider uses other than retail that can turn a retail property into a vibrant mixed-use property that generates the most revenue.
We Know Retail: Woodcliff provides management consulting for shopping center companies, retailers, commercial real estate organizations, communities, lenders, investors and purveyors to the industry. We work with about two dozen industry professionals with vast expertise in most facets of commercial real estate that can bring you the vision to define realistic alternatives for maximizing the potential of your income producing properties.
Our consultants draw upon their specific areas of proficiency. We assign your project to the pertinent expert or select group of experts. In this manner, the appropriate specialist can work directly with the client where his or her expertise can be expertly applied to achieve optimum results. Once we ascertain your needs, we will provide you with a defined proposal listing the scope of work, the anticipated fees and costs, the timing and the particular specialist or group of specialists who would be assigned to your project. We can contract the project as a lump sum fixed-price contract, step pricing as major stages of the work are completed or on a time-and-materials basis that takes into account the resources to be employed, anticipated out-of-pocket costs and the estimated time to complete. We offer flexible payment arrangements and can plan out the work in phases.
As retail real estate strategists, we can assist you with analyzing your retail properties for optimum performance through tenant mix enhancements, redevelopment, operational efficiencies and alternative revenue. We have the vision and experience to help you transform your retail real estate asset for maximum value.
SERVICING THE NEEDS OF
Retail Companies
Real Estate Owners
Managing and Leasing Agents
Investors and Lenders
Communities and Government Agencies
Service Providers to the Commercial Real Estate Industry
PROJECTS OF CONCENTRATION
Open-Air Neighborhood Centers, Community Centers and Power Centers
Factory Outlet and Value-Retail Tenants and Landlords
Underperforming Enclosed Regional Malls in Need of Adaptive Reuse and Anchor Replacement, Demalling, Streetscape Reconfiguration and Experience-Based Dining and Entertainment
Transforming Retail Properties into Revitalized Best-in-Class Mixed Use
Retailers Seeking to Revamp or Outsource their Real Estate Department
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
DEVELOPMENT, REDEVELOPMENT, ENTITLEMENTS AND SITE PLANNING: For landlords
Woodcliff can help with development of properties from small neighborhood centers to large scale mixed use. Lamont Blackstone and James Matanky can assist you with urban and suburban neighborhood shopping centers while John Genovese and other accomplished Woodcliff development specialists can help tackle the large-scale developments that involve bringing anchors, massive parking structures, multifamily components and extensive retail. Services include:
Assistance with land acquisition, site planning, entitlements, analyzing construction soft and hard costs, reviewing the construction schedule, evaluating market forces, determining if the location can attract multifamily, educational uses, entertainment, restaurants and credit-worthy retailers, and if so, which types to pursue, qualifying the feasibility research, crafting the development pro forma and setting pro forma rents, analyzing budgets for tenant allowances, assessing pre-leasing needs, ordering the ALTA survey, environmental survey, traffic studies, considering offsite improvements, out-parcels, ground lease, utilities and infrastructure planning and more.
MIXED-USE ASSETS: For property owners, developers and lenders
Working with Greg Maloney, Rudy Milian, Alberta Davidson, Alan McKeon and other key members of the team, Woodcliff can analyze your retail asset for potential to add non-retail uses to strategically and thoughtfully transform your retail property into a dominant mixed-use destination. We carefully curate your project for retail, entertainment, dining, multifamily, medical, educational and other uses to create a unique-to-market experience that serves the needs of the community. Our studies include:
Research analysis to assess the feasibility of adding multifamily, hotel, office or entertainment uses.
Configuration of uses to segregate and minimize costs, improve security, seek complementary uses that enhance cross patronization, and identify third-party investor/developers for non-retail uses.
Design elements to enhance placemaking, wayfinding and ensure integration of real estate uses to optimize customer flow.
FORECLOSURES AND RECEIVERSHIPS: For lenders, bankruptcy courts and property owners facing foreclosures
Working with Greg Maloney, who for years headed up JLL’s receivership practice for all asset types, including office, industrial, retail, hotel, land, multifamily, healthcare and senior housing, Woodcliff can provide guidance to the lender’s special servicer before proceeding with foreclosure to navigate efficiently through the process. These services are also available to a court-appointed receiver trying to manage the complexities inherent with the rapidly evolving process and to a property owner that has an impending foreclosure and needs to protect its interest. Services include:
In a bankruptcy, acting as the person appointed by the court to take possession of the property, to receive, collect, care for and dispose of the property, or in the alternative, act as a consultant to the court-appointed receiver or the successor ownership entity.
Assisting lenders and special servicers considering a foreclosure of a retail property to evaluate alternatives, set a timeline, analyze entitlements, guide the valuation process and create a short-term business plan that contemplates transitional management until the asset is eventually packaged and sold.
Analyzing retail assets in pre-foreclosure status with the intent of providing alternative solutions to enhance revenues and/or prepare for a potential sale.
Creating an RFP and assisting the client in seeking new management, leasing, refinancing, redevelopment and other services.
ACQUISITIONS, DISPOSITIONS AND BROKERAGE: For property owners, investors and lenders
For purchase and sale transactions, Woodcliff brings Bill Rose, an effective and trustworthy national broker specializing in retail and mixed use with knowledge of the market and a vast stream of potential buyers representing shopping center companies, noninstitutional and institutional investors. Woodcliff clients benefit from Mr. Rose’s team of brokers based in Marcus & Millichap’s 80 offices across North America. With additional independent assistance from Mike Rulli and Greg Maloney, Woodcliff can help evaluate the pro forma of a property for sale to opine on its appraisal, cash flow projections, pro forma reliability, underwriting assumptions, stabilization period, market studies, cap rates assigned, analysis of operating company fees and back-end promote, financing modeling with emphasis on loan-to-cost, loan-to-value and debt service coverage ratio to determine financing capacity, debt yield, and return-on-investment models. We can assist in analyzing a potential acquisition and can advise on the merits of long-term hold versus disposition strategies. See other services relating to acquisitions and dispositions elsewhere on this page involving due diligence, lease examination and abstracting, and feasibility research.
RAISING VENTURE CAPITAL AND SEEKING DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS: For landlords and service providers
If you are a developer of mixed-use properties and are looking for the right retail developer or multifamily developer partner or you are an entrepreneur service provider catering to retail real estate and are seeking investment capital to propel your business, contact us at Woodcliff. Rudy Milian brings to Woodcliff clients his extensive relationships with key decision makers in the retail real estate industry and investment community. If you are an experienced entrepreneur seeking equity capital to grow your business, we can help you interact with early-stage venture capital firms to familiarize them about the uniqueness of your business model and your brand proposition within retail real estate circles.
We help you communicate with your prospects by creating an offering memorandum and slide-deck presentation that will get their attention and interest. We can prepare an executive summary that effectively highlights the key messages about the opportunities you are offering to venture capital investors. We can become involved at the board level and offer you meaningful connections and shared experiences.
CRAFTING PUBLIC/PRIVATE ALLIANCES: For developers and economic development officials to collaborate a project
If you need help in forming public-private partnerships and urban development planning with an emphasis on alternative financing methods, including tax increment financing, Woodcliff works with two experts, each bringing a different level of expertise and geographic focus. Lamont Blackstone can help with inner-city projects and development know-how that gets the door open so that you can close the deal. He offers a national scope with strong emphasis on the East Coast as well as the West Coast. James Matanky brings to Woodcliff a team of urban development experts that also can bring in local retailers with a strong presence in the Midwest. Woodcliff can help you:
Facilitate the development and redevelopment of urban real estate assets, obtain underwriting, craft public-private partnerships, negotiate joint ventures, conduct site analyses and tackle site planning issues, create a development proposal, attract a national supermarket to an underserved urban location, conduct a market and financial feasibility analysis, negotiate a plan for public parking and infrastructure to support your development, and plan your reciprocal easement agreements involving multiple owners in a development.
CONDUCTING FEASIBILITY, GEOFENCING AND CONSUMER MARKET STUDIES: For acquisitions, development, financing, marketing, leasing or attracting an anchor
With the assistance of Alan McKeon and Alberta Davidson, we can help Woodcliff clients — whether they represent developers, private or institutional investors, retailers or public agencies — who are in need of a reliable study to qualify the potential of a retail or mixed-use site for financing, developing, redeveloping, seeking anchors or just to improve the leasing and marketing efforts in the ongoing operation. Depending on your specific needs, Woodcliff offers:
Estimating retail sales of non-reporting anchors through the use of geofencing data for every location of a retail chain by equating nationally published statistics, such as average sales per store, sales per square foot of selling area and other metrics and applying certain weighting for such factors as store traffic from mobile location data points, the immediate trade area per capita spending on pertinent merchandise categories, annual household income, etc.
Commercial real estate best-use feasibility market research, financial analysis, disposition versus long-term holding strategy analysis, assessing revenue potential for development prior to project opening, defining market rents and retailer sales potential for the development of a reliable pro forma, comparing primary research to secondary industry data and market demographics, analyzing the competitive climate by retailer type to plan the project's tenant mix and more.
Geofencing data analysis through the use of smartphones with enabled location-based applications where we apply our sophisticated communication technologies using GPS, RFID, Wi-Fi and cellular data to interpret the actionable points you should consider to guide your investments. Our platform can reveal how your property stacks up against existing competition in terms of footfall but we can extrapolate third-party data that tracks spending through credit, debit and other transaction processors to quantify sales contribution to your competitors. Without installing any equipment or conducting in-person visits to your property, we can cost-effectively profile the shoppers at your property and its competitors. Our geofencing studies can identify where your shoppers reside, their demographic characteristics, spending habits and consumer behaviors. We can define the trade area, the propensity for your property and the competition to attract your target income-bracket consumers and the length of typical shopping visits; the type of information you need for quantifying leasing targets, refining your marketing strategy and making fact-based decisions regarding investing, redeveloping or disposing of the asset.
LEASING CHALLENGED PROPERTIES: For landlords
For leasing services and real estate transactions that require a state broker’s license, Woodcliff clients can work directly with one of Woodcliff’s affiliates that are skilled in a specific type of property and location. For example, Rene Daniel, the founder of The Daniel Group, LLC, can assist Woodcliff clients with accretive remerchandising and strategic leasing of underperforming regional shopping centers and devise the optimum strategy for a property, whether it is a newly acquired asset, a long-term hold or a candidate for disposition. We can tackle large retail properties including regional malls, lifestyle centers, specialty centers and community centers, as well as mixed-use developments anywhere in the United States. Mr. Daniel has a track record for value creation through increasing occupancy and growing rental revenue as a result of his leasing and remerchandising efforts in new, planned and existing properties.
LEASING AND DEVELOPING VALUE-ORIENTED, DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER/OUTLET CENTERS: For landlords and retailers
If you are considering adding an off-price outlet component to an existing shopping center, planning a conversion to outlet retail or developing a successful outlet shopping center anywhere in the world, Woodcliff works with a team of experts that can help you plan it, lease it and avoid making costly mistakes. Our team includes Ron Simkin, principal of Simkin Group and Steve Levy, principal broker of Levy Commercial Realty LLC. Both have worked on behalf of landlords and retailers, and both have experience with outlets as well as non-shopping center properties that have a retail component, such as mass transit, airports, hotels and mixed use. Mr. Levy can arrange tenant representation for retailers seeking to revamp their real estate department and provide many options including lease negotiation with landlords. Services include:
Strategic planning and implementation of national and international rollouts of new retail concepts, tenant representation, commercial and investment sales, restaurant brokerage services, leasing on behalf of the landlord, planning the tenant mix and rent pro forma for an outlet shopping center from the predevelopment or pre-expansion stage through final leasing and conducting a feasibility study for an outlet center to quantify and qualify the elements.
SPECIALTY LEASING, POP-UP SHOPS, VENDING AND NON-RENTAL INCOME GENERATION: For landlords and specialty pop-up retailers
As a landlord, you want assurances that revenue from sources beyond long-term leases is maximized at every retail property. Woodcliff, working with Suzanne Cayley can help analyze your program and show you how to increase income and create a state-of-the-art program that meets today's best practices. Woodcliff services include:
For digital native and direct-to-consumer brands, we can help create an omnichannel presence through creative leasing of the optimum brick-and-mortar locations to ensure success from the start. Using our team of consultants, we can plan the physical location entry on short-term occupancy or a long-term lease. For short-term agreements we can help you with the agreements with the landlord, set up your location and even help staff it.
For retailers and consumer brands, we offer retailer representation and consulting services, including visual merchandising, site selection, lease negotiation, physical location set-up, hiring and training sales staff; leasing and building pop-up locations at competitive rents on short duration license agreements, including build-out assistance; helping traditional retailers expand and test new markets with a seasonal location or branch out into a kiosk or retail merchandising unit (RMU for short) to increase revenue during your optimum peak seasonal period.
For landlords of shopping centers, public places, transit facilities and airports seeking to boost occupancy, revenue and retail activity, we help create a new or revamp your existing specialty leasing program, including designing, implementing, leasing, training staff, hiring and/or managing your program; automating retail sales collections and reports, developing a model license agreement, conducting specialty leasing evaluation, which involves analyzing your existing program and developing actionable plans to improve the overall appearance, increase revenue, train your specialty leasing team to perform at a higher standard and generate more income.
MARKETING: Specializing in corporate branding, urban and mixed-use retail, and repositioning properties
If it's a fresh and sophisticated marketing approach you are seeking, look no further than Woodcliff. Working with Alberta Davidson, Woodcliff can assess the market position of a shopping center company or a retail-focused project to revamp its campaign, refresh its website and reposition the property in the minds of the existing retailers, prospective retailers and the consumer. We offer an experience-driven marketing approach that includes creative use of social media, innovative advertising, news worthy public relations, event planning and cost-saving effective digital strategies. Select among the following Woodcliff marketing offerings:
Assessment of marketing plan and parameters, creation of a targeted marketing and leasing plan and devising a sponsorship branding for income generation and positioning.
Creation, production and placement of advertising, restructuring the corporate brand, image and marketing department.
Implementing new digital and social networking strategies that involve pay-per-click, search engine optimization, social media campaigns, email marketing campaigns and online advertising, revamping the website in a manner that works with mobile, PC, Mac, digital wearables and social media sites with targeted communication that speaks to the intended audience.
Sales promotion, special events, community relations, loyalty and engagement programs, merchant motivation/relations, partner relations, and marketing staffing administration, which can include training marketing specialists in skills required to implement effective sponsorship/alternative revenue programs.
PUBLIC RELATIONS AND NEWS COVERAGE STRATEGIES: Specializing in commercial real estate trade and consumer media
If you are seeking to redefine your external communications strategy encompassing traditional and digital media, external speaking engagements and social media, Debra Hazel, a veteran editor of commercial real estate news, can handle the assignment while collaborating with the Woodcliff team. We do not offer the typical P.R. but rather professionalism in journalism with a focus on retail real estate that speaks the language journalists understand and consider to determine whether your story merits coverage as legitimate news or gets deleted unread as spam. Our emphasis is the trade media that covers shopping centers and other types of commercial real estate. We communicate with journalists about newsworthy topics relating to Woodcliff's corporate clients to seek the news coverage they merit. For groundbreaking events, new retail entries and project launches, we can get your message through the local media to your target customer as well as to prospective tenants, capital sources and potential development partners through the trade media. Our services include:
Consulting and strategic planning, creating national, regional and local publicity campaigns, designing and creating the press kit, planning the calendar of news releases, writing the news releases and distributing them to targeted media websites, industry publications, blogs, social networks and search engines through our proprietary list and through digital newswire services that remain searchable for years to come.
We develop media relations interaction on your behalf while seeking interview opportunities, holding news conferences when appropriate, arranging media and VIP tours, assisting with event publicity and promotion, providing trade exposition support, contributed or by-line articles in trade publications, pitching speaking opportunities, preparing industry awards applications, blogs, social media, and copywriting services to add punch and professionalism to your brochures, offering memorandums and reporting to investors.
MANAGEMENT COACHING TO TRANSFORM COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE COMPANIES INTO PEAK-PERFORMING ORGANIZATIONS: For property owners, management companies and lenders
Sarah Vasquez works with Woodcliff clients to empower their organizations to succeed, a process that involves innovative leadership training and talent development for senior executives and middle management teams. She focuses on cultural alignment in creating lean and agile organizations by upskilling talent, ensuring team members have aspirational goals, and are appropriately focused on the key issues that increase EBITDA and asset value. Our training can be customized on a one-on-one coaching basis or as a group in a conference room setting in the following areas:
Senior executive leadership training, includes setting personal, departmental and corporate goals; talent development that helps the department heads communicate with clarity and accomplish cultural alignment to boost efficiencies and scale innovation while maintaining flexibility, all of which helps attract and retain top talent.
Middle management sessions to unlock the full potential of the team and improve productivity, compliance and profitability.
Defining corporate culture and attaining buy-in for the CEO’s goals.
One-on-one interaction between the CEO and the professional executive coach, aimed at effective leadership techniques including communicating goals, decision-making, conveying confidence, image enhancement, delegation of responsibilities, and creating executive incentive programs designed to boost retention, provide rewards and achieve revenue growth.
Improving partner relations and servicing clients.
COSTS SAVINGS, OPERATING EFFICIENCIES, ENERGY REDUCTION AND ESG/SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING: For property owners, managers and investors
Reducing operating costs, such as energy, water, common area maintenance, landscaping and other expenses can help building owners improve NOI, help reduce occupancy costs for tenants, save on wasted resources, make your building safer and more comfortable for its occupants, lower your carbon footprint and help with compliance issues. Working with George Caraghiaur, Woodcliff can:
Arrange for energy procurement at substantial savings in de-regulated markets, scrutinize energy billing to reduce energy costs, conduct load studies to produce defensible usage and demand for tenant energy consumption in the absence of tenant submetering, properly allocate tenant consumption and improve billing systems, review and suggest alternative lease language for optimum operating efficiencies, compare energy usage alternatives, analyze viability of renewable energy installations, devise contract specifications with utilities and grid operators for the most appropriate demand response programs that reward building owners for reducing demand during peak times, ensure properties are being billed according to the most favorable utility rate schedules, evaluate the pros and cons involving a conversion from pro rata share of operating costs to flat fixed CAM obligations, create a variable incentive program for corporate and property management, help resolve CAM audit issues and more.
Prepare RFPs and help negotiate HVAC central plant purchase and maintenance contracts, vendor trash hauling agreements, third-party management of paid parking services, and automated parking equipment to replace cashier operation.
Create a custom-made environmental, social and governance (ESG) framework for your organization and assist your architect, construction professionals and operating team in seeking LEED, BREEAM or other sustainability certification for new or existing properties; create a template for your team’s sustainability reporting to senior management, board of directors, investors, stakeholders and third-party benchmarking systems that measure the sustainability performance of real estate companies, such as the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), and the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB)
Apply for third-party financing of sustainability improvements; apply for green tax incentives and credits from cities, states and Canadian provinces, federal sources and rebates that may be available from utility companies.
TENANT COORDINATION AND TENANT DESIGN CRITERIA OVERSIGHT: For landlords
Working with professionals from the Greeby Companies, Woodcliff can provide tenant coordination services to get your new stores opened quickly, efficiently and paying rent while ensuring compliance with code regulations and meeting specific landlord and tenant requirements. Tenant coordination services include:
Creating an interactive state-of-the-art tenant design criteria manual in cloud-based digital format for owners, landlords, and retailers. This process provides a customizable web and mobile-enabled interface with search capabilities to accelerate the retail delivery process and reduce the cost of tenant coordination. Your property manager, construction manager, tenant coordinator, leasing agent and other team members can use this tool to keep track of progress on their iPads, smartphones and sync to their desktops for leasing support, design and plan review, developing lease outline drawings (LODs), plan review, landlord work, space turnover, tenant improvement monitoring, sharing rules and regulations with contractors, build-out oversight, construction close out procedures, punch list management, right up to certificate of occupancy, opening for business and rent commencement.
Assigning local tenant coordination specialists to support leasing by preparing cost estimates to deliver the space, notify tenants and communicate with tenant contractors, send tenant delivery and turnover notices, handle tenant inquiries regarding construction, utilities and routing of services, track tenant submittals and review plans to ensure they meet landlord criteria and communicate deficiencies to landlord and tenants, provide on-site management, participate in leasing and development meetings to report on tenant submittals, anticipated construction hurtles and length of buildout, ensure work is carried out in a safe manner and according to code, approved plans, design criteria and general contractor rules and regulations, communicate with local building inspectors, prepare a punch list at the conclusion of construction prior to grand opening, obtain closeout documents, as-built drawings in electronic format to transmit to the owner, and recommend release of tenant improvement allowances, if applicable.
CONSTRUCTION PROJECT MANAGEMENT: For retailers, landlords, lenders and service providers
If your company uses third-party general contractors for tenant construction, CapEx construction or other major construction projects involving the shopping center shell, site and common areas, it might serve you to seek a representative to oversee the process reporting directly and exclusively to you, whether you represent the landlord, the retailer or the lender. Representing the interests of our client, our role is to achieve the client’s goals and objectives from predesign to design to construction and finally, the closeout phases of your project. Regardless of where you need expert and reliable project management, working with the team from the Greeby Companies, Woodcliff can offer design and construction representation involving major construction work through our circle of highly experienced construction professionals regionally located to provide economically feasible owner’s representative services, such as:
Predevelopment site assessment for construction, existing conditions evaluation, due diligence, construction pro forma, program organization, team assembly, developing an RFP, soliciting bidders, negotiating and awarding all service contracts, conceptual design oversight, establishing budgets, creating a master project schedule, pre-construction services, value engineering alternatives, and contract document administration.
Construction stage services include site due diligence and oversight, team assembly, supervision of general contractor, tracking budget and scheduling, holding project meetings and reporting progress periodically, design management, approving change orders, cost analysis, contract administration, systems and technology integration, vendor coordination, regulatory agency coordination, conflict resolution, occupancy phase coordination, creating a punch list, and execution of all contract requirements including final payments and release of retainage bonds.
LEASE ACCOUNTING, LEASE ADMINISTRATION AND DUE DILIGENCE: For landlords
Don't leave money on the table because of lease accounting practices that may be inaccurate or need updating. If you are selling a shopping center, Woodcliff can help review leases to ensure maximum cash flow, help prepare cash flow models and lease summaries for inclusion in marketing packages and scrub lease and correspondence files for completeness. For an acquisition, Woodcliff can help the buyer by creating a realistic alternative acquisition spreadsheet that challenges the seller's optimistic cash flow projections while at the same time identifies upside income potential for the buyer. In running a smooth operation, there are many ways that Woodcliff can assist you with your lease administration. Our services are custom fit to a client’s needs and include financial analysis, lease and document review, financial statement auditing and cash flow modeling. Jack Nugent and his associates bring lease accounting and examination expertise to Woodcliff clients who are in need of:
Conducting thorough due diligence prior to a disposition or an acquisition, reviewing prior year reconciliations, accounts receivable and correspondence to ensure accuracy and consistency with the leases; abstracting the financial and non-financial covenants of the leases and summarizing complex issues, abstracting leases and specialty leasing license agreements and entering the data into the owner's property management software, identifying and quantifying variances and discrepancies that lead to an acquisition spread, performing forensic review of property and lease documents, noting areas of risk, such as tenant termination options, exclusive or restrictive uses, governmental ordinances or restrictions.
Evaluating lease accounting system efficiencies, preparing estoppels and prorations, outsourcing your lease administration, assisting with property transitioning, providing expert testimony on common area maintenance administration, billing and related issues involving industry standard practices, preparing and reviewing cash flow modeling and forecasting, budget process streamlining, lease transaction analysis, assessment of lease language involving lease revenue, evaluating software alternatives for lease administration, and tenant dispute resolution.
RETAIL TENANT SALES AUDITS AND SYSTEMS FOR SALES REPORTING AND ANALYSIS: For property owners, managers and investors
Working with Ken Lamy and his highly experienced team of forensic accountants including CPAs and MBAs located throughout the United States, Woodcliff can help monitor and measure sales as well as other key revenue components through financial examinations. Services include:
Customized retail sales and lease compliance examinations (tenant sales audits, revenue share and data verification), revenue audits of specialty leasing and ancillary income, such as RMUs, kiosks, gift cards, vending, trash, revenue from use of rooftops, ads and technology services; test transaction/secret shopper, parking facility revenue, ground leases, substantiating need for rent abatement (relief) and analysis of performance and financial systems for restaurants.
Working closely with each client, we can develop policy, procedures and strategies to maximize NOI of your properties by ensuring that reported sales for calculating percentage rents or justifying lease terminations reflect the entire gross receipts of every kind and nature from sales and services made in, upon or from the demised premises as agreed to in the lease. We have established working relationships with our financial counterparts from numerous national and regional retailers, restaurants and franchisors that make the process for auding tenants straightforwardly and in a non-confrontational manner. From planning to implementation to follow-up support, we bring unique industry knowledge, expertise, experience and technical application that easily uncovers deficiencies, making our services more affordable for you.
Available to Woodcliff clients representing property management companies is a new proprietary Software as a Service (SaaS) solution called EXETER Retail DataHub, which automates retail tenant sales reporting for landlords to streamline your collection of tenant sales data. These reports can uncover hidden patterns, unknown correlations, market trends, shopper preferences, troubled tenants, excessive effort ratios and other useful information to supplement the lease administration process and help set renewal rents.
MAXIMIZING YOUR FEE MANAGEMENT BUSINESS: For management companies and leasing brokerage firms
Greg Maloney can analyze the potential of retail real estate brokerage firms and management companies and define an actionable plan for growing the business, setting strategy and direction for increasing gross revenue and maximizing the bottom line.
Assess opportunities for a company seeking to be acquired or to acquire another company or to enter into a strategic partnership with another company that can enhance the bottom line of both entities by reorganizing the merging entities based on core competencies.
COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE EXPERT WITNESS: For lawyers
Rudy Milian and other consultants affiliated with Woodcliff are available as qualified experts to express opinions that can help the court understand evidence relating to several fields of retail real estate for which they are competent in the subject matter. Each of our experts are qualified through training, education, knowledge, skill and practical experience resulting from more than two decades of on-the-job experience in commercial real estate and shopping center economics, development, leasing, property management, security, premises liability and/or finance. Our expert witnesses understand underlying methodology and procedures for which they rely upon as a basis for their opinion. They perform two primary functions: 1) collecting, testing and evaluating evidence to form an opinion as to that evidence; and 2) communicating that opinion and its basis to the court and jury, if applicable. Our expert witness compensation is never contingent on the outcome of the case or the substance of our consultants’ opinions or testimony. Upon qualification by a client’s legal team, our expert witnesses will:
Review pertinent material involving the case.
Conduct a search of relevant external documents involving commercial real estate industry best practices.
Reach their own conclusions and opinions relating to the case.
Prepare a detailed expert report for the court about the issues involving the case. In the report, the expert will state each opinion — and give the reasons for it — including the underlying facts or data used as a basis for the opinions.
Participate in depositions to present opinions related to the written expert report.
Provide expert witness testimony before the court.