Schmidt of Schmidt Construction: Retail rents setting records

Name: Barry Schmidt Title: President Company/Firm: Schmidt Construction Consulting Years with company/firm: 13 years Years in field: 27 years Years in real estate industry: 27 years Telephone: 212-495-9117 Email: [email protected] URL: www.schmidtconcon.com Real Estate Associations/Affiliations: Real Estate Board of New York What are you hoping to accomplish by attending and/or exhibiting at the show and what is different about this year's show? I hope to meet retailers who are expanding in the New York City area, and who may need assistance in executing their construction projects. Are retailers finding the types of properties that they want right now and are tenants happy with the sites available to them? Retail rents are setting records again in many of the hot New York City neighborhoods, making it harder for tenants to find good deals in those areas. Many are being forced into secondary locations. In the current economic climate what kinds of deals are out there and who is the typical buyer? Consumer? The economic climate in New York City right now is far superior to the national average. Retail rents are rising and the competition for prime space is intensifying. The positive side of this is that consumers are doing better, creating more opportunities in the secondary neighborhoods in the outer boroughs. The recession, rising gas prices and the housing crisis has created a new trend. Generation Y'ers are now staying in the city and the baby boomers are actually returning to the city from the suburbs. How has this affected your business and NYC retail in general? This trend of reverse "blight flight" has been a boon to the NYC real estate economy, creating great demand for housing and for retail space. It is a main driver of why rents have been rising in NYC faster than they have nationally, and that has helped our industry immensely. One year after the devastation of hurricane sandy, the redevelopment of many of New York's damaged areas has shed some light on this disaster with additional plans for expansion in the locations affected by Sandy. How will this affect NY retail and your business in particular? I don't think retail will be greatly affected by disaster preparations as retailers are typically tenants and I believe this is a landlord issue. To the extent that landlords and developers need to upgrade their building that can create opportunities for my business to provide consulting and project management services on those projects. How did your company withstand the recession and what changes have you made to grow and succeed during the recovery of the retail market? We survived the recession by keeping overhead minimized and tabling any plans for expansion. As the market is now recovering, growth opportunities are again abundant, and we are trying to seize those opportunities by expanding our market visibility through increased use of public relations and social media. How does your company use social media? Has social media been a beneficial tool in generating more business? We really started to use social media intensely in the past 12 months and are making great use of Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and email blasts. All of those avenues are meant to channel attention back to our website and create increased awareness within our industry niche. The effectiveness of this approach is readily apparent to us.