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The second day of ICSC RECon 2010 brought with it the crowds we have become accustomed to at this event. Both halls were noticeably more active than they were on Sunday as attendees worked through the meat of their appointment schedules.

Yesterday morning I wondered what I would hear about the investment sales climate. It turned out that I didn’t hear a whole lot. The majority of conversations I had revolved around leasing and touched upon many of the same themes I heard on day one. That’s partly a function of the people I’ve met with so far. I think that will change today as I have a few major investment sales brokers on the dance card. I expect to get a clearer view of the investment sales climate and some feedback on the financial climate.

Aside from leasing, the main things I’m hearing is that companies are thinking about development, albeit very cautiously. Projects being talked about will be pursued through a measured approach. They will be centers that will come on line in 2013 or 2014 if they are ultimately pursued. But it means the firms that dumped development pros in recent years may begin to look for that talent again as they prepare to ramp up that side of the business. Today, companies are much more likely to pursue redevelopment opportunities at existing properties rather than ground-up work. Firms that have dealt with expiring loans and gotten their balance sheets in order are shifting their attention to this area. They’re evaluating portfolios and identifying opportunities where they can revamp centers.

Typically on RECon’s last day the crowd begins to thin considerably after noon and is a virtual ghost town by 2 or 3 in the afternoon. But with the conference shortened this year I wonder if that will remain the case. My schedule definitely reflects the change. I have meetings scheduled right through 5 PM–when the hall is scheduled to close. In fact, I actually will end up meeting with slightly more people today than I did on Monday.

The overall mood remains positive. I tend to think there gets to be a bit of an echo chamber effect at these shows. People go in wanting to be optimistic and once they start reinforcing that mood with each other it starts to build. That’s not to say that things aren’t legitimately better than they were 12 months ago. I just imagine that there still may be a few more bumps in the road on the way to recovery.

My pace of meetings may make it difficult to get another blog post up until late tonight. So check back then or look for our newsletter tomorrow that will provide a final wrap-up of the conference.

The 2010 ICSC RECon show got underway on Sunday, but the real wheeling and dealing has now begun. The convention floor is notably more active and tables at developer and broker booths are fuller than they were for much of Sunday. It confirms a suspicion many had coming in that a lot of attendees didn’t fully adjust to the conference’s new format. It is expected that today will be the most active in the Leasing Mall with meetings continuing most of tomorrow.

Many of the conversations I had yesterday revolved around leasing and social networking. In today’s meetings I hope to get a better feel for what’s going on with investment sales. Has the bid/ask gap narrowed? Is volume picking up? Is there a market for class-B and class-C assets? And how much of the recovery in sales is ultimately tied to the health of the capital markets?

After my afternoon slate of meetings concludes I’ll try and pop back on and jot down a few thoughts. In the mean time, keep checking the Twitter feed and check our site for comprehensive coverage.

Lastly, thanks to everyone that stopped by the meet and greet we held at the Retail Traffic booth this morning. It’s always good to put faces with the names behind phone numbers and email addresses.

I’m still trying to make sense of the day. For starters, be sure to check out some great commentary on day one of ICSC RECon 2010 from Jones Lang LaSalle’s Greg Maloney and the always insightful David Stejkowski. They both have some great insights into what happened.

In addition, Scott Wendling’s excellent compilation of ICSC attendees Tweeting from the show floor (including us provided an amazing running commentary of the day’s events. Anyone that didn’t make it to Vegas would be well served to monitor that list for the rest of the convention. (And, of course, you can find our ongoing coverage of the conference here.)

As for me? Some of the questions I raised this morning got answered.

For starters, the overall mood today seemed bright and optimistic. Commercial real estate pros tend to be an optimistic lot. And that definitely seemed evident today. The most common commentary I heard in terms of why people felt good about the industry’s outlook was the fact that retailers have gotten more active in recent months and many are at the show looking for deals. That’s in stark contrast with last year when few deals were being negotiated at the Leasing Mall.

Attendance seemed somewhat light today, but ICSC reports that conference registrations are high and the final tally of pre-registrations and on-site registrations may reach 35,000–a healthy improvement over last year’s numbers. It seems that a lot of companies didn’t fully adjust their schedules to match the new conference format. Instead, there are a lot of meetings scheduled for Monday and Tuesday and there were a lot fewer today.

Lastly, most people I spoke with were massively disappointed with Sarah Palin’s keynote. She made a few mentions of malls and shopping, but largely gave a standard stump speech. The notes that connected most with the audience were a few choice digs at President Barack Obama, warnings against excessive regulation and some pro-business and pro-free market remarks. However many felt disappointed that Palin didn’t make more of an effort to talk about issues important to the industry. She did not, for example, say anything about the tax treatments of carried interest–a topic that surely would have resonated with the audience. And it wasn’t like she didn’t talk about taxation at all. She talked about higher taxes when making comments about the recent health care reform.

Anyway, there’s more to say about the show. But my head is spinning already. I’ll throw together some more thoughts in the morning and then look for more updates Monday and Tuesday. One day down, two to go!

ICSC’s RECon 2010 is just hours away from officially getting underway.
The next few hours should prove interesting. For one, how will people respond to the conference’s new format? With more activities beginning today and the whole deal wrapping up by Tuesday afternoon how long will people end up being in town? I get the sense that a lot of folks are coming in for Sunday and Monday but not staying for Tuesday. Some people came in Saturday so they could get a jump on their conference first thing this morning. There were even a few pre-conference cocktail parties last night. But if the cab line yesterday was any indication, many attendees have yet to get here. I’ve never seen the cab queue at McCarren as short as it was yesterday. My hunch is that there are a stream of industry pros flying in today so that they’re here when the Leasing Mall and Trade Expo officially open at 2PM.
The new format means that the concurrent sessions and opening general session won’t be up against the Leasing Mall. So if people want to meet, they need to do it informally before 2. And I wonder how many people may end up scheduling around the General Session so they can get a glimpse of former Alaska governor and Republican 2008 vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Will her presentation be a boilerplate speech full of folksy tales? Or will she cater her message to talk about issues near and dear to the hearts of retail real estate executives? I wonder, for example, if she will talk about the growing sentiment in Congress in favor of raising the carried interest tax rate–an issue that will greatly affect the industry should it come to pass.
In addition, how many people will show up this year? Estimates are that attendance may reach 30,000. That would be a bit of improvement over last year, if still well short of the massive turnouts we saw at the industry’s peak a few years ago.
Perhaps what I’m most interested in learning is what the overall mood will be. A few weeks ago there seemed to be some real positive momentum building in both the economy and the industry. Retail sales have been strong in recent months. Industry fundamentals have begun to stabilize. And the economy was continuing to improve in many regards. There have even been stirrings in the last couple of months among some retailers about opening new stores and rolling out new concepts. So the leasing climate has begun to improve.
But the days leading up to the conference have reintroduced uncertainty. Macroeconomic concerns about potential sovereign defaults have shaken global markets. The carried interest issue looms large. And without strong and consistent job and income growth, it’s hard to see retail sales growing robustly.
So will attendees focus on the positive signs or will some of the more unsettling developments in recent weeks shake their confidence?
Lastly, it’s just 55 degrees currently in Vegas, with the high temperature today forecast at 61 degrees. Did anyone pack for that kind of weather?
All these questions will be answered in the coming hours and days. Stay tuned to this blog, to the Retail Traffic page and follow us on Twitter for updates throughout the conference on these issues and more.