Retail real estate is not won in boardrooms. It is won in the field. Chris Ressa sits down with Tine Helton, Regional Property Manager at DLC, to talk about the work that actually keeps open-air retail centers running across Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. From tenant relationships to infrastructure issues, Tine walks through what it means to own the day-to-day when performance, responsiveness, and consistency are the difference between a good center and a great one.

Tine’s path into property management started on the leasing side, where she learned how a deal turns into a real, operating business. That curiosity led her into operations, professional certifications through IREM, and a leadership role focused on getting better at the craft, not just holding the title. The conversation digs into why education, ethics, and peer networks still matter in a business that moves fast and demands real accountability.

At DLC, Tine shares what stood out most: a culture that backs its people and expects them to take ownership of outcomes. The result is a practical look at how strong operators build better properties, stronger tenant partnerships, and long-term performance in open-air retail.

What You’ll Hear

1. Why the best property managers operate like owners, not order-takers
2. How leasing knowledge becomes an operational advantage once the deal is signed
3. What IREM certifications actually change in day-to-day decision-making and leadership
4. How to turn education and peer networks into real career leverage
5. What strong culture looks like when performance and accountability matter
6. How Midwest open-air centers stay competitive through consistency, speed, and follow-through

Chapters

00:00 – The Operator’s Seat

Chris introduces Tine Helton and sets the stage for a conversation about what it really takes to run retail centers, not just lease them.

01:00 – From Leasing to Leadership

Tine explains how her early work supporting leasing teams shaped the way she thinks about operations, tenants, and long-term performance.

02:45 – Choosing the Harder Path

A look at why she moved into property management and embraced the challenge of being accountable for everything that happens after the deal is done.

04:00 – The IREM Advantage

Tine breaks down how certifications, ethics, and peer networks through IREM sharpened her decision-making and accelerated her career.

07:30 – Turning Education into Opportunity

How investing in professional development led directly to promotions, leadership roles, and industry recognition.

12:45 – Joining DLC and Thinking Like an Owner

What stood out about DLC’s culture and why ownership, accountability, and support matter in daily operations.

15:40 – Growth Without a Ceiling

Tine shares why continuous learning, new disciplines, and community involvement keep her pushing forward.

17:45 – Defining a Successful Year

What success looks like when it is measured by team performance, process improvement, and being a leader others can count on.

2026 might be the year retail real estate finally turns momentum into pricing power. Chris Ressa and Karly Iacono open with a confident call: next year will outperform an already-strong 2025, and the data is starting to line up behind it.

Holiday sales climbed roughly 4 percent year-over-year, outpacing inflation and reinforcing a simple truth: consumers keep spending, even when sentiment wobbles. The conversation breaks down the “K-shaped” economy, where higher-income shoppers drive discretionary growth while value-focused and necessity-based retail remains resilient across every income bracket.

The hosts point to sharper inventory discipline and steadier supply chains as quiet margin drivers, giving retailers more control over pricing and fewer forced discounts. On the real estate side, fewer major bankruptcies and limited space givebacks are tightening supply, setting the stage for a more landlord-driven market. The result: upward pressure on rents, stronger net operating income, and potential value gains as interest rates ease.

They also look ahead to demand catalysts, from global sporting events and America’s 250th anniversary to a new wave of store openings coming out of late-2025 leasing. While risks remain, from AI-driven job shifts to geopolitical uncertainty, the core bet is clear: tighter supply, resilient consumers, and disciplined operators could make 2026 a defining year for retail real estate.

What You’ll Hear

1. The data points behind the call that 2026 tops a strong 2025
2. Why consumer spending keeps winning over sentiment
3. How the K-shaped economy is reshaping value, necessity, and discretionary retail
4. Tighter supply, fewer bankruptcies, and what that means for landlord leverage
5. Inventory discipline and supply chains as quiet drivers of pricing power
6. NOI, rents, and value: how the real estate math is shifting
7. Traffic catalysts ahead, from global events to a new wave of store openings
8. The key risks still in play, from AI disruption to geopolitical shocks

Chapters

00:00 — The Bold Call for 2026

Chris and Karly open with a confident prediction that 2026 will outperform a strong 2025 for retail real estate and explain why they’re leading with the conclusion.

01:20 — Holiday Sales vs. Consumer Sentiment

A breakdown of holiday spending growth and why real consumer behavior matters more than surveys and headlines.

03:55 — The K-Shaped Economy in Retail

How higher-income and value-focused consumers are shaping different lanes of retail performance across categories.

05:55 — Inventory, Pricing, and Margin Control

Why better inventory discipline and steadier supply chains are giving retailers more leverage on pricing.

08:20 — Tariffs, Supply Chains, and Stability

What’s changed since early 2025 and why supply volatility feels less like a headline risk for 2026.

09:45 — Bankruptcies, Space, and Expansion Pressure

How fewer large retail failures are tightening available space and reshaping store rollout strategies.

12:10 — The Landlord’s Market and Rent...

Retail real estate in early 2026 is defined by imbalance. In many suburban, open-air markets, demand is overwhelming supply. Five tenants are chasing one quality space. Vacancy is razor-thin. New construction still does not pencil. The result is leverage—and it is shifting.

Chris Ressa and Andrew Mahr of Bialow Real Estate dig into how that leverage is actually showing up in deals. Face rents are not always jumping overnight, but economics are tightening through lower tenant improvement packages, higher tenant capital contributions, and tougher negotiations around delivery costs. Retail is repricing—just not always in the most obvious way.

The conversation also highlights the growing divide between markets. Urban cores tied to office traffic remain uneven, while suburban lifestyle centers are absorbing demand from retailers with capital, patience, and long-term conviction. Strong operators are choosing to invest more upfront to control fixed occupancy costs over time, especially in junior anchor and specialty formats.

A North Miami case study brings the thesis to life. An off-market Wild Fork deal shows how the best sites are no longer “available”—they are unlocked through persistence, relationships, and a willingness to target occupied real estate. The takeaway is simple: in today’s market, waiting for vacancy is passive. Going direct is how deals get done.

What You’ll Hear

• How rising rents are showing up through deal structure, not always through face rate
• Why tenant improvement packages are shrinking and tenant capital is coming back into the equation
• What it really means when deals “don’t pencil” in a high-cost, high-rate environment
• How strong retailers are deciding when it makes sense to invest more upfront to control long-term occupancy costs
• Why off-market strategies matter more in a low-vacancy world
• A real North Miami case study showing how targeting occupied real estate can unlock best-in-market locations
• How landlord-tenant alignment can accelerate expansion and turn single deals into long-term partnerships

Chapters

00:00 – Welcome and introductions

Chris Ressa welcomes Andrew Mahr and sets the stage for a wide-ranging conversation on retail, relationships, and the market.

01:00 – Running, resilience, and perspective

Andrew shares his Boston Marathon journey and why endurance, advocacy, and long-term commitment shape how he approaches business.

03:00 – What Bilo Real Estate actually does

A look at Bilo’s role as a national, outsourced real estate department and why deep market familiarity matters.

05:15 – Retail in 2026: a tale of two markets

Urban cores tied to office demand lag while suburban, open-air retail faces intense competition and limited supply.

07:45 – Why new retail still doesn’t pencil

Interest rates, construction costs, and underwriting realities continue to stall speculative retail development.

09:30 – Leasing momentum and shifting deal economics

Rents are rising—but often through reduced TIs and higher tenant capital, not just headline numbers.

12:00 – Who’s winning: strong retailers with capital

Why the healthiest tenants are choosing to invest more upfront to control long-term occupancy costs.

13:30 – Hospitality and wellness as growth categories

Restaurants, social...

Retail real estate is not just stable — it is entering a meaningfully better phase of the cycle.

Drawing on recent conversations with owners, brokers, tenants, architects, engineers, and contractors, Chris Ressa challenges the prevailing narrative that 2026 will simply mirror a solid 2025. Instead, he outlines why the year ahead could outperform expectations across leasing, rents, and long-term fundamentals.

At the center of his thesis is sustained leasing velocity. Across categories and markets, tenant demand continues to outpace available supply, even as headlines focus on isolated retailer struggles. Chris explains why those failures do not define the health of retail — and why today’s winners are expanding with conviction.

He also breaks down why early-2025 disruptions, including an unusually high number of store closures and tariff uncertainty, are unlikely to repeat in 2026. With bankruptcies moderating, new construction still muted, and many signed tenants yet to open, available retail space is tightening further.

Layer in a U.S. consumer expected to gain discretionary spending power, and the result is a collision of forces that may finally unlock meaningful rent growth. Chris argues this is the early innings of a retail pricing cycle — and 2026 could be the year it clearly shows up.

What You’ll Hear

• Why 2026 could outperform already-strong 2025 results
• How leasing velocity is signaling a tighter retail market
• The impact of fewer bankruptcies on available retail space
• Why muted new construction matters more than headlines suggest
• How rising consumer discretionary income supports rent growth
• What the next retail pricing cycle may look like for landlords and investors

Chapters

00:12 – Welcome to 2026

Chris sets the stage with early sentiment from across the retail real estate industry.

01:58 – Leasing Velocity Tells the Real Story

Demand for retail space continues to outpace supply across most categories.

03:28 – Winners, Losers, and Retail Reality

Why retailer failures don’t equal a weak retail sector.

05:32 – Bankruptcies, Tariffs, and a Reset Market

How 2025 disruptions slowed leasing—and why 2026 looks different.

07:26 – The Consumer Comes Back Into Focus

Rising discretionary income and its impact on physical retail demand.

08:18 – Rent Growth vs. Landlord CapEx

How economics are shifting tenant and landlord cost burdens.

09:03 – The Early Innings of a Pricing Cycle

Why multiple forces are colliding to push rents higher.

10:55 – What’s Next for Retail Retold

Fresh off the energy of ICSC New York, Chris Ressa and Carly Iacono unpack what really matters in retail real estate right now and where the market is headed into 2026. In this episode of What’s in Store, they move past surface-level headlines and dig into the conversations happening behind closed doors with investors, landlords, and retailers alike. pasted

One clear theme emerged: certainty has returned, but the conversation has shifted. Cap rates are no longer viewed solely through the lens of interest rates. Instead, investors are pricing risk based on tenant quality, sector fundamentals, and long-term demand. At the same time, retailers are facing a supply crunch, with limited availability in top shopping centers constraining expansion, even as new stores continue to outperform expectations.

Chris and Carly also explore the rising demand for value net lease deals, the growing challenge of maintaining long weighted average lease terms, and why long-term credit tenants have become harder to find. Perhaps most encouraging, retailers are reinvesting heavily in their physical stores, signaling renewed confidence in brick-and-mortar retail.

Taken together, these insights paint a clear picture: retail is not just resilient. It is evolving with discipline, data, and conviction.

What You’ll Hear

1. Why cap rates are being driven more by risk than rates
2. How supply constraints are reshaping retailer expansion plans
3. Why value net lease assets are suddenly in high demand
4. What strong new-store performance signals about consumer behavior
5. How retailers are prioritizing physical stores again
6. What the absence of AI chatter says about the current cycle
7. Why these trends matter heading into 2026

Chapters

00:07 – Setting the Stage at ICSC New York

Chris and Carly explain why ICSC remains the most important deal-making forum in retail real estate.

02:30 – Why Cap Rates Are No Longer Just About Interest Rates

The discussion shifts to how investors are pricing risk by sector and tenant quality.

10:25 – Liquidity Returns and What It Means for Deal Volume

Improving credit markets are quietly unlocking stalled transactions.

12:07 – The Real Supply Constraint Retailers Are Facing

Retailers want to grow, but many cannot find space in their top target centers.

15:51 – Value Net Lease Becomes a Hot Asset Class

Short-term and below-market leases attract intense buyer demand.

25:28 – New Stores Are Outperforming Expectations

Retailers report new locations beating pro forma sales projections.

31:39 – The Challenge of Long-Term Credit and Lease Duration

Maintaining portfolio WALT is getting harder as long-term deals become scarce.

34:23 – Retailers Reinvest in the In-Store Experience

Capital is flowing back into physical stores through remodels and upgrades.

37:05 – The Surprising Silence Around AI and Labor

Two dominant topics from past conferences barely register this year.

38:34 – Why These Trends Point Toward 2026

Chris and Carly explain why these themes are just the...

Flashing back to December 2023, this Retail Retold replay proves just how relevant the details still are. In this episode, host Chris Ressa breaks down one of the most underestimated risks in retail real estate leasing: possession contingencies. A lease can be fully executed, a delivery date locked in, and everyone feeling good, until the existing tenant does not leave. Without a possession contingency in place, landlords can find themselves caught between two tenants, facing delays, legal exposure, and a deal that suddenly starts to unravel. It is a reminder that possession is not a technicality; it is everything.

Chris also zooms out to talk about something just as critical to long-term success: skill-building. Every year, he commits to sharpening a new skill, often outside of traditional business training. These disciplines, ones that demand focus, patience, and attention to detail, end up strengthening how deals get done, decisions get made, and pressure gets handled.

This quick-hitter episode is a flashback with staying power. The lesson is simple: protect your deals with the right clauses, and protect your edge by continuously leveling up. Because in retail real estate, the smallest details often decide the biggest outcomes.

What You’ll Hear in This Replay

• Why a fully executed lease does not always guarantee possession — and how that gap can derail a deal
• A real-world breakdown of possession contingencies and when they actually matter
• The risk landlords face when existing tenants do not vacate on time
• How one overlooked clause can impact delivery dates, legal exposure, and tenant relationships
• Why continuously building new skills outside of your core job can make you a better dealmaker

Chapters

00:00 – Flashing Back to December 2023

Chris reflects on the timing of the episode and why these lessons still matter today.

02:15 – The Habit of Building New Skills

Why intentional skill development — inside and outside of business — sharpens long-term performance.

04:20 – Learning Precision Outside the Office

How mastering a detail-oriented hobby improves focus and decision-making in high-pressure work.

09:55 – What Is a Possession Contingency?

A clear, practical explanation of the clause many deals overlook.

12:10 – When a Tenant Does Not Leave

The real risk of expired leases, holdovers, and delayed possession.

14:30 – Protecting Delivery Dates and Deals

How possession contingencies create clarity and protect all parties.

15:30 – Final Takeaways

Why better documents and better operators go hand in hand.

In this episode of Retail Retold, host Chris Ressa gets inside the mind of Lÿden Foust, the CEO and founder of Spatial.ai—the company turning real human behavior into a map retailers can actually use. If you think location strategy is still built on income bands and census data, this conversation flips that idea on its head.

Foust explains how Persona Live Segmentation blends social signals, credit card trends, demographic nuance, and movement patterns to reveal who your customer really is—and where they live in the physical world. It’s the engine behind brands like Patagonia and Lululemon choosing sites, growing market share, and targeting high-value segments others miss.

Ressa and Foust dig into the elephant in the room: AI isn’t spatial (yet). The technology can write decks and draw buildings, but it can’t feel the difference between half a mile and a trade area boundary. The fundamentals still matter—and boots on the ground beat bots on the map.

The two break down how value just overtook quality in consumer preference, why Dutch Bros is winning by going after unexpected segments, and how landlords can use psychographics to land better tenants and build smarter merchandising mixes.

What You’ll Hear:

• Why psychographic segmentation, not demographics, drives retail market share
• How Patagonia, Lululemon, and others use Persona Live Segmentation to find their best customers
• The four data sources behind Spatial.ai’s models: social, purchasing, demographics, movement
• Why AI is not yet spatially aware enough to replace human site selection
• What mobile data gets wrong and right about trade areas
• How Dutch Bros disrupted the “crowded” coffee category by targeting unexpected segments
• Why value is now outperforming quality in consumer decision-making
• How property owners can use psychographics to land the right anchor tenant
• Where demographic trends are shifting: birth rates, immigration, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha
• The surprising role of franchising as a growth engine for retail real estate

Chapters

00:00 — Who Is Lÿden Foust

Chris introduces Lÿden and the origin story of Spatial.ai’s Persona Live Segmentation platform.

01:13 — Why Psychographics Matter

Lÿden explains why real behavior beats demographics when retailers choose locations.

02:15 — The Data Behind Persona Segmentation

Spatial.ai blends social signals, spending patterns, demographics, and movement to map customer segments.

06:38 — Retailers Using It Today

Patagonia, Lululemon, and others use psychographics to find top customer groups and guide site selection.

10:58 — AI’s Limits in Real Estate

Chris and Lÿden debate why AI isn’t spatial yet—and why human context still wins for site selection.

12:41 — Mobile Data: Good and Bad

They break down what mobile visitation data reveals, and where it misrepresents certain customer groups.

14:27 — Building Trade Areas Smarter

Lÿden explains how mobile data reshaped trade area analysis and unlocked competitive insight.

18:40 — Value Now Beats Quality

They explore why “value” just surpassed “quality” in consumer preference and what retailers should do about...

The kids’ entertainment world is exploding, and in this episode of Retail Retold, host Chris Ressa dives straight into the center of that momentum with Melissa Tinsley, Director of Real Estate at Unleashed Brands. Melissa pulls back the curtain on the powerhouse portfolio behind Urban Air, Sylvan Learning, The Little Gym, and Water Wings, revealing how Unleashed is rapidly shaping the future of experiential retail.

She shares why she left Tropical Smoothie Café after eight years to tackle the high-stakes, high-complexity world of big-box entertainment real estate—where ceiling heights, engineering gymnastics, waivers, zoning battles, and multimillion-dollar buildout decisions turn every Urban Air deal into an adrenaline-fueled puzzle.

Melissa breaks down Urban Air’s evolution from trampoline park to full-scale adventure park, how that shift has changed the competitive landscape, and why the brand is aggressively expanding across the West Coast, East Coast, and major suburban hubs.

She also explains why Urban Air is becoming a go-to solution for vacant big boxes—drawing families, driving cross-shopping, and creating the kind of sticky traffic landlords crave.

Packed with candid insights on franchisee growth, site criteria, and real estate challenges, this episode gives a powerful look at how Unleashed Brands is building the next generation of family-focused retail experiences.

What You’ll Hear:

• The inside story on how Urban Air is rewriting the rules of kids’ entertainment
• Why “trampoline parks” are over—and adventure parks are the new category killer
• The gritty realities of big-box real estate: ceiling hurdles, digging pits, raising roofs
• How Unleashed Brands is turning dead anchors into high-performing family magnets
• The markets where Urban Air is going all-in—from California to the Northeast
• Why franchisees with serious capital are chasing adventure park deals
• What most landlords still misunderstand about Urban Air
• The dealmaking mindset that gets complex entertainment leases signed—fast

Chapters

00:00 – Meet Melissa Tinsley

Melissa shares her background and move to Unleashed Brands.

01:26 – Inside the Unleashed Brands Portfolio

How Urban Air, Sylvan, The Little Gym, and Water Wings fit together.

03:16 – The Reality of Big-Box Entertainment Deals

Ceiling heights, engineering challenges, waivers, and zoning.

04:55 – From Trampoline Park to Adventure Park

How Urban Air is evolving and outpacing competitors.

07:28 – Franchise Growth + Who’s Investing

The types of franchisees fueling expansion across the country.

09:31 – Markets on Fire

Where Urban Air is growing fastest—especially CA, NY, and NJ.

11:13 – Filling Big Box Vacancies

Why Urban Air is becoming a prime replacement for dark anchors.

12:18 – What Landlords Need to Know

Co-tenant reactions, parking concerns, and why Urban Air drives powerful family traffic.