Retail restaurant client seeking new location for his conceptual idea of the next hottest restaurant to hit the valley. So I took a call from, let’s call him Mr. X, who cam through from the office line the other day and began to wonder why I did. The gentleman was deliberate on his presentation, knew exactly what he was looking for, and basically told me how I should do my job of representing him. Well, after I heard about how I did not know anything and should be listening to every piece of direction he is giving me, it was then my turn to ask one question: so, tell me Mr. X, how many million dollar restaurants do you have now? I...

With a recent uptick in same store sales, Tropical Smoothie is in growth mode once again. Tropical Smoothie has been experiencing a bit of a downtrend over the past year, until recently. There has been a surge in customer loyalty and new customer acquisition, and with the help of bright and shining stars at the helm of operations, Tropical Smoothie is, once again, expanding in key markets. Those markets include Arizona. This is where I step in. I was contacted to assist in finding the perfect locations for the next roll out of units within the Arizona marketplace. These plans could not have come at a better time within the current...

2011, a year to create new challenges, new highs, and get up and over it already! ‘It’ equals the year of 2010. The economy is in the tank, the outlook is bleak, and the silver lining is turning rusty. We have all heard it from one person or several. The economy this, foreclosures that, and whoa is me, blah blah blah. Get over it, the past is the past and there is not a single thing you can do about it. However, there are many lessons to be learned from all of the past, and that will be the hurdle that needs to be crossed. For example, on a yearly basis, salmon swim upstream to go and do their thing with their...

With the turning the new new year, comes change.  From persons to personalities, to lifestyle to Retail.  Now is the time where there are seen many Retail Lifestyle Centers changing, well evolving is more like it. We have come to a point in time where lifestyle is overcoming retail, and so has the tenant mix within lifestyle centers. Where the older version of lifestyle centers was that of high-end product and service units, we are now experiencing major shift of what the term “Lifestyle” actually means. That shift is headed to ‘what does the would be shopper do during the day/night/weekend/’, and now has come to...

So, as we all know the market is not up to speed and, frankly, considered a bit slow. However, there are these usual suspects called, the Rainmakers, who are getting ready for a storm to hit. Buyers of REO properties have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for a great deals to pop up and they pounce on the slightest glimpse. This waiting game is excruciatingly exhausting, and can make or break real estate professionals all around the world. There are deals happening, but they are few and far in between. When, and if, you find yourself in the middle of one, you must on hang on tight and do everything in your power to make it work out...

To quote a movie that my family absolutely enjoyed: Susan Murphy: Why did I ever think life with Derek would be so great anyway? I mean, look at all I’ve done without him. I mean, fighting a giant alien robot? That was me, not him! And that was amazing! Meeting you guys… amazing. Dr. Cockroach, you can climb walls, and build a super computer out of a pizza box, 2 cans of hairspray… Dr. Cockroach Ph.D.: And a paper clip! Susan Murphy: Amazing! And you, you hardly need an introduction, you’re the Missing Link! You single-handedly carried off 250 co-eds out of Cocoa Beach, and still had enough strength to fight off the...