The Shopping Center Lawyer

U.S. Retailers Plan to Stop Paying Rent to Offset Virus

By: Ted Zangari

Every businessperson will soon be tossing around the phrase “force majeure”— none more so than tenants, especially retailer-tenants. The waterfall on rent relief has only just begun and will intensify in the run-up to the April 1 due date for next rent payments. Tenants are already pressing landlords; landlords, in turn, are pressing their mortgage lenders; and tenants, landlords and mortgage lenders together will all be pressing insurance companies to lift their policy exclusions for pandemics and viruses. Unless Congress steps in, chaos and a cascading series of defaults will take place. It doesn’t have to be this way. Former Trump Administration economic advisor Gary Cohn has a brilliant proposal: allow landlords to write-down 2020 rent losses on their 2019 tax returns. (The same write-down could instead be accorded to any of the other parties in this four-ring circus.)

> Click here to read "U.S. Retailers Plan to Stop Paying Rent to Offset Virus" from Bloomberg

Curbside Enthusiasm: Retailers Adapt In A Time Of Crisis

By: Ted Zangari

Curbside pickups, already trending in shopping centers before the pandemic, will likely become a permanent feature of retail stores...along with features long associated with bank branches: automated kiosks (ATMs), dividers between customers and clerks (tellers), and drive-throughs. As with the advent of mini-fulfillment centers within stores (see my earlier post), these operational and design changes will trigger all sorts of lease, building code and land use issues. Landlords, tenants and their host municipalities have no choice but to get this right; e-commerce may have created a competitive threat the past two decades, but COVID-19 poses an existential threat to all parties. When it comes time to swing open the doors, don’t just re-open— RE-IMAGINE.

> Click here to read "Curbside Enthusiasm: Retailers Adapt In A Time Of Crisis" from Forbes