Let’s Go to the Mall: New value in brick-and-mortar retail malls

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Spencer Levy 
As an American institution, the mall was modeled on the idea of a modern town square for the mid-twentieth century. Through decades of change, there have been economic ups and downs. And after the potential doomsday period of the pandemic, the latest chapter of mall history is starting to take shape. On this episode, the leader of one of the top mall owners in the nation tells us what it's all about. 

Tom O'Hern 
So I would say the health of the sector, particularly the A-mall sector, is better than it was pre-COVID. And we're poised and in position to go forward. 

Spencer Levy 
That's Tom O'Hern, CEO of Macerich, a publicly traded REIT originally founded in 1964. Macerich now has a portfolio with 44 A-quality regional malls, totaling 47 million square feet of space, and Tom says demand is on the rise. Macerich made headlines recently when it closed a deal to purchase vacant Sears stores for redevelopment that offers a window into the next generation of the asset class. Coming up, Macerich and malls at a time of resurgence and evolution. I'm Spencer Levy, and that's right now on The Weekly Take. 

Spencer Levy
Welcome to The Weekly Take. Tom, thank you so much for joining the show. 

Tom O'Hern
Thank you, Spencer. Happy to be here. 

Spencer Levy 
Great to have you. So, Tom, I think there's been a lot of positive and there's been a lot of, quite candidly, negative perceptions of the mall sector over the last 15 years. Where is it today and where does Macerich play into that? 

Tom O'Hern 
Well, if we focus on ten years ago, coming out of the great financial crisis, a lot of the mall operators had a combination of A-quality and B-quality malls. A-quality doing 600 plus a foot in annual tenant sales per foot. B-quality doing less than that. And I think since 2010, 2011, there's been a bifurcation. There's been some spinoffs by various companies. In our case, we sold 25 lower quality assets. And so clearly there is a bifurcation between A-mall portfolios and B-mall portfolios. Demand for A-quality malls is much stronger in terms of leasing demand, leasing volumes. In our case, we're geographically focused in the Northeast and the West; California, Pacific Northwest and Arizona. And the market has come back strong. We had the lifetime event of COVID that hit in March of 2020, which hit almost around the country very hard. We've come back from that as a sector. And now I think we, in most cases, have operating metrics that are at or above pre-COVID levels. So I would say the health of the sector, particularly the A-mall sector, is better than it was pre-COVID. And we're poised and in position to go forward and add new uses that didn't exist ten years ago. Diversified uses, densify those assets. And I think that the mall business is in a great position today. 

Spencer Levy 
And I think even some of the more distressed areas that certainly have been in the headlines. I know that Macerich recently bought a bunch of Sears stores, that many of which, maybe all of which, were vacant. So maybe even some of the areas that gets the headlines for distress or challenges can create opportunities if reinvented. Tell us a little bit about the Sears deal and how you look at some of these challenged opportunities and turn them into positive ones. 

Tom O'Hern 
So really, that happened five years ago, Spencer. We bought out a number of Sears boxes outright, and then for nine locations, we partnered with Seritage, which was the Sears real estate spinoff. And so for those five years we were partnered with Seritage. We worked to repurpose these malls. Some cases converted them into other types of retail. Dick's Sporting Goods took a number of the spaces. A lot of entertainment uses like Round 1, etc. And just last week we announced that we had five boxes remaining with them and we bought out their 50% interest in those five boxes. So now we have 100% control. In a couple of those cases, we are going to, the plan is to demolish the Sears box, put in a variety of multi-family as well as entertainment, food and beverage, etc., diversify those properties, and that's in process now as we pursue entitlements. 

Spencer Levy 
Retail is top of mind for a lot of investors. In fact, I think it is more top of mind today than it's been in years in a good way, because I think that some of the challenges in the office sector is causing some people to take a second look at retail. Are you seeing some of that in your world, Tom? 

Tom O'Hern 
We have seen increased interest. We were just back at the NIRI Investor Conference, had a lot of great meetings and there's a high level of interest. Look, the reality is, when COVID hit, the sectors that got hit first and the hardest were hotels, cruise lines and malls. And we battled through that fight for the better part of 2020 and 2021. We worked through it. We saw our occupancy drop from 94% to about 88%, and we battled back. Spencer, today we've got an occupancy level over 92%. The A-quality regional mall sector is primed to take advantage of the leasing demand. And I'd say there's definitely a heightened level of interest both from investors and certainly from retailers. 

Spencer Levy
And I think that's a good way to frame it, Tom. So let's start with the retailer interest, because I think it's fair to say that there hasn't been a whole lot of new retail construction in the last ten, fifteen years. You're seeing, actually, a scarcity of space, scarcity of good space, in certain places. Can you talk about that, Tom? 

Tom O'Hern  
Yeah. So although you haven't seen a lot of ground up development, Spencer, as you point out, there has been a tremendous amount of redevelopment. So what five, six years ago was headlined as very much a negative for the mall sector. The fact that Sears was closing, for example, proved to be quite a positive for the A-quality malls because we had space available that we could redemise, repurpose, turn into other uses, and it created some space that we didn't have before. And so it doesn't necessarily show up because it's not ground up development, but it is redevelopment of existing proven locations, and it gives us the chance to bring in diversified uses, whether it be multifamily, whether it be hotels, whether it be co-working, health and fitness, like Lifetime Fitness has made a big push the last few years, and it's a tremendous addition to a regional mall. It brings in, in a given week, anywhere from 4 to 5000 visitors. Members. It brings an energy level and a new use that frankly, we haven't seen previously. So the chance to do all that was really made possible by the fact that we could recapture Sears boxes and repurpose that space. 

Spencer Levy 
And that's, what you suggest, is the fundamental shift in the regional mall space, or maybe one of the fundamental shifts in the regional mall space in the last decade. Where, say ten years ago, you were focused almost 100% on traditional retail. Now it's this mixed use component. The office, the multifamily, maybe a hotel, all to create this live work play atmosphere. Is that a fair way to put it? 

Tom O'Hern 
I think that's very fair. Ten years ago, most of what our leasing was focused on traditional retail, apparel, department stores, footwear. Today, it's much different. They will differentiate the demand for A-quality space as much different than B-quality space. So a lot of these alternative uses, whether they be hotel, multifamily, co-working, electric vehicle manufacturer is another new category. A lot more entertainment, food and beverage, sports, has come, really, in the last ten years for sure, but it's really accelerated post-COVID. 

Spencer Levy 
Well, I think post-COVID, there's a lot of other uses. And you mentioned the entertainment uses, one of them being movie theaters. Movie theaters had a tough go of it. There’s been some high profile bankruptcies in that sector. What about the movie theater segments of your properties? 

Tom O'Hern 
Spencer, we don't have a lot of theaters, but I can give you one example where we did have a theater operator that went bankrupt. They had a space on the third level of Santa Monica Place, just a few blocks from our headquarters. We were able to recapture that space and were able to sign a deal with Arte Museum. Arte Museum comes from South Korea. They are a digital art gallery. It's immersive. They control their content. For example, you might walk into a room and feel like you're being, having a wave crash down on you. It's something new. They've got one under construction in Las Vegas. We’ll be the second one in operation, the first one in California. They expect to bring to the third level of Santa Monica Place a million visitors a year. So that's a lot of bodies. It's a gated attraction at roughly 40 bucks a head. So that's $40 million in sales. 

Spencer Levy 
What do you look at, Tom, not just for your existing portfolio, but maybe for future acquisitions, as the key factors of what may be a area for a successful Macerich mall? 
Tom O'Hern 
Well, we certainly look at the demographics, Spencer. That's an important part of the equation. We look at the competition, you know, how many A-quality regional malls are fighting for that demographic. And we also look at the physical asset and the quality of the real estate, the market that it's in, the ability for us to add new uses to potentially densify or diversify. Can we add a hotel? Can we add multifamily on the perimeter? What type of city is it? Are they cooperative with businesses? And we are specifically focused on the Northeast, California, and Arizona. Those have been strong markets for us, and so we continue to have a strong interest in those geographies. 

Spencer Levy 
So we talked about the mixed use component; the multifamily, the office, hotel. When you do these types of things, I'm quite familiar with one of your joint ventures with Hudson Pacific, Westside Pavilion, where you're converting an older mall into creative office. How much of this other product do you do in joint venture, or do you do directly? 

Tom O'Hern 
So it depends on what we would do. Multifamily, we would probably joint venture with a multifamily developer. We're in for entitlements in a number of locations today and ultimately we'll probably joint venture. In that particular case you mentioned, it was Westside Pavilion. It was a mall that got outflanked on one side by us when we redid Santa Monica Place and on the other side by Century City. But it was a great piece of real estate. It's on two major thoroughfares in Los Angeles. It's about a half a mile from UCLA. It just didn't make sense to continue on as a regional mall. And so we partnered with HPP and converted it to creative office. There's a component, about 20% that's still retail, but the vast majority of that asset today is creative office. 

Spencer Levy
Now, it's interesting you mentioned UCLA. Number one, I know you're on the Marshall School Board of USC, so I know it took some courage for you to say UCLA. That's okay. But nevertheless, I think it's important to understand that many of these products have an anchor that is maybe a nontraditional anchor, and the anchor might be a university. It might be a entertainment venue. It could be the Hollywood Bowl. It could be anything like that. But these were not traditionally the retail anchors of choice. They were standalones. But do you think the world has shifted to one where they have to have one of these institutional anchors, like a school, like an entertainment venue? 

Tom O'Hern 
I think it's a case by case basis. We've got an urban shopping center in downtown Philadelphia. Fashion District, Philadelphia. We just rebuilt the property. The timing wasn't great. We opened right before COVID, in November of 2019, but we've been in discussions for the last two and a half, three years with the Philadelphia 76ers, and they are very interested in exploring buying a portion of that mall and putting in a basketball arena. So in this particular case, should that come together, and we hope it does, because I think it's going to be a game changer for downtown Philadelphia, that would most certainly be considered an anchor. It's a great amenity. We've seen it here in Los Angeles, although it happened kind of in the reverse order. But it's been quite a boom for Downtown Los Angeles. So, I'd say the A-quality mall operators today, and there's not very many of us, are thinking way out of the box and coming up with ways to, nontraditional retail ways, to make our centers more interesting. 


Spencer Levy 
Well, you'll be happy to know, Tom, that we had as a guest about four months ago, David Adelman from the Philadelphia 76ers. Well, I'm sure you know, talking about your project and his optimism for exactly what you just said. So we'll put two and two together and we certainly hope it works out for both of you. 

Tom O'Hern 
Fantastic. 

Spencer Levy
So, Tysons Corner. I know you have a big project down there and it's been a successful project for years. But notwithstanding its success, you're thinking about some big changes there. Won't you tell us about that? 

Tom O'Hern 
Spencer, Tysons Corner Center is what I would consider the ultimate town center. First, it started out with 2 million square feet of quality retail. Then we added a hotel. We added an office tower. We added a residential tower. And oh, by the way, the train station was just put in there right about that same time. So we've got people coming by car, by train, by bus. A lot of people continue to consider that their go-to location. In addition, we've got entitlements to add another office, or multifamily/office tower, and it's something we're in the process of, working with the various municipalities. So that's a great center that continues to get better. Continues to get more diversified. And it's a great example of a town center and the type of thing we'd like to replicate elsewhere, as possible. It's a fantastic property and one of the most productive in the country. 

Spencer Levy
And I think what it's a great example of is a phrase that we've heard. I'm not sure who to attribute this to, but it is “disrupt yourself”. Tysons Corner was a huge success before you did anything or did anything recently, but you're constantly evolving to stay ahead of the market. And I'm sure you're looking at your other projects that way, as well. 

Tom O'Hern 
No, absolutely. The live-work-play concept is here to stay. And the more places we can do that or do elements of that, the better off our portfolio is going to become. And I think we've got a lot of opportunity for that and we're in the process of doing that in a lot of other locations. 

Spencer Levy 
I remember the day, and this wasn't that long ago, maybe it was ten years ago, that our break point for Class A malls versus something else was 500 bucks. And now you're well above that number. And maybe the breakpoint has moved up. But do you think there's just been a concentration of the weaker assets and people are now concentrating, retailers are concentrating, in the A-product. So there's actually less retail today from a mall standpoint than there might have been ten years ago. 

Tom O'Hern 
Well, there's no question there's less. From our standpoint, we made it a concerted effort coming out of the financial crisis, 2011, ‘12, ‘13, to dispose of our lower quartile assets. So between 2011 and 2017, we sold 25 non-core assets, tertiary markets, and they were doing on average $330 a foot. So that has certainly helped boost our overall average portfolio sales per foot number. But I think you've got more and more tenants that are coming, and they've identified A-quality centers like Tysons Corner and Santa Monica Place and Broadway Plaza and the Village at Corte Madera. That's where they want to be. They're not willing to go into tertiary markets. And so I think a lot of these new uses, including the digitally native brands, they want to be in those top centers and that's what's driving that sales per foot number. And there is less space. Clearly, there's less mall space than there was ten years ago. 

Spencer Levy 
Well, let's talk about the digitally native brands for just a moment. And I think that the case that I know a lot of people use is Warby Parker. That was one of the pioneers of being a clicks to bricks. But how much of that are you seeing today and how much are you seeing the Internet as your partner rather than a competitor? 

Tom O'Hern 
Well, if there was one point that COVID drove home with the retailers, it's the importance of brick and mortar retail. And so even the most ardent DNVBs, Digitally Native Vertically Integrated Brands, that said they were never going to open brick and mortar have changed their thinking. And we think of some of the more active names today, like Alo Yoga, for example. Allbirds, that's how they started. There's still a relatively small percentage of the total net operating income in our portfolio. I'd say 2 to 3%, but there's a lot of upside there, and they definitely see the benefit because when they open a physical location. They see their online sales go up. Their market awareness goes up and they see the benefits. So, the demand there is as strong as it's ever been. 

Spencer Levy 
One of the fundamental challenges that we've had in retail, in particular retail, but it applies to some other asset classes as well, but in particular retail, is what I would call the balancing act between credit and cool on a teeter totter. And of course, you want the highest credit tenant. Of course you want to have the most successful tenant, but you also want to activate the center and maybe you want to have a lower credit coffee shop or lower credit sneaker retailer than somebody else as a mix to some of the more traditional retailers. How do you think about that mix between, if I'm saying it correctly, credit and cool? 

Tom O'Hern 
Now Spencer, that's absolutely right. It's a balancing act. We do want to bring in a lot of these new retailers, new concepts that are interesting. Our preference would be to do it and give them space that's pretty much ready to go. We got a lot of tenant allowance dollars going into what might be a credit challenged situation, but we look at a lot of the EV makers, and we're doing a lot of deals with Polestar and Rivian and Lucid and others. And they come in, and they'll take a vanilla space, they'll put a couple of cars in there and they generate a tremendous amount of interest in energy, and coolness, as you would say. And people love them. It's not just Tesla. I mean, we've been doing deals with Tesla for ten years, but there's a handful of others today that really realize the advantage of having a showroom in a town center setting. It's been exciting and it's a pretty good example of the balancing act between a strong balance sheet and a strong new concept. We're willing and open and you have to assess your risk going in. There's going to be times that fails, but you hope you have more winners and losers. And I think historically we have. 

Spencer Levy 
This brings me to a question I ask a lot on retail-focused podcasts, which is the future of leasing, the structure of leasing. And so I think traditionally it's fair to say that in real estate, we always want to have a credit tenant for a long term lease. But now, given how quickly things evolve, maybe shorter term is better? Maybe having flexibility to move a tenant from space A to space B. So tell us how leasing has evolved over the last ten years, given the quick pace of change of retailers. 

Tom O'Hern 
Leasing is still a face to face business where you get somebody interested in a space, but typically deals are done in a face to face, establishing a relationship and coming to terms. And hopefully when you do one deal with somebody, that's the first of many. So that hasn't changed. And really, it's our revenue cycle. Leasing is our revenue cycle and the nuances change. During COVID, there were shorter term deals. Now that we're out of COVID, we're back to seven. 7 to 10 years is a typical term. Percentage rent comes into play. If you got somebody that's not so sure how they're going to do, you might strike a lower minimum rent deal in exchange for percentage rent if they go over a breakpoint. 

Spencer Levy 
So, Tom, you brought up EVs as a tenant, but it certainly brings up the issue of energy, use of energy, and look, malls use a lot of energy. And so what are you doing at Macerich as a company to try to mitigate not only energy usage but using greener power sources? 

Tom O'Hern 
Well, we've been on the forefront of this, Spencer. We do a lot of solar energy. There's a lot of sunshine, we have a lot of rooftops. And so the last few years, we've been one of the top 25 non-utility producers of power in the country. By virtue of all our solar. We've also been ranked eight of the last ten years as the number one retail real estate company in the country as it relates to sustainability. So solar has been a big part of our program. We consider dual materiality when it comes to environmental projects where we see a good return on costs and we invest money, but we see a great savings in terms of carbon neutrality, getting to carbon neutrality, and that's a big goal of ours. Our stated goal is to be carbon neutral by 2030, and that comes with using a lot of technology. I mean, first it was the lighting systems, then it was the energy systems. Now it's solar and you know, that's going to continue. We think it's the right thing to do for our portfolio, for our communities, for the environment, and we also see a good return on our investment. 

Spencer Levy 
Let's talk about some of the other new uses or evolving uses of space; EV charging stations within your parking lots, picking up, buying online, picking up in store, dedicated parking. These are nitty gritty issues as relates to your properties. But how do you handle these nitty gritty issues like that? 

Tom O'Hern 
Well, I think it gets back to being – number one, having great locations and great markets. Number two, being open minded and nimble as it relates to what we do. So as we battled our way through COVID in 2021, it was like, okay, what worked during COVID? What didn't work? What worked? What's here to stay? And buy online, pickup in store, frankly, was good for everybody, so we go out of our way to make that convenient. We think having EV chargers is just smart. I mean, it brings people to the center. They think about the center. It's good for the environment. Sometimes we're able to make some money on it. But, we just think it's one of those things that's here to stay, particularly in California. Clearly, the EV absorption in California's higher than almost anywhere else in the country. And so it's a big deal on the West Coast. And it's an amenity that I think more and more and more, not just shopping centers, but office buildings are going to have because the consumer is demanding it. And I think it's going to go from being unique to being nice to have to being must have. 

Spencer Levy 
I think it's fair to say that in the press today, there's a lot of negative news about CBDs, Central Business Districts, and retail within urban environments. And there's a lot of negativity. But A, what's your point of view of the future of retail in denser urban environments? And does some of the negativity create opportunity? 

Tom O'Hern
Well, I mean, I think it's case by case. For example, we own the mall in Queens, New York, a very densely populated urban environment, and our demand for space just continues to grow and grow and grow. I mean, Primark, who’s relatively new to America, they've been pushing for space in Queens Center for two years now. We're their biggest landlord in the US, and we were finally able to cobble together about three or four different locations on two different levels and provide an adequately sized space for Primark. So that demand is good. We've seen it be pretty good. I think other locations are more challenged. It just depends. You know, I think some office markets are coming back faster than others. I'd say the westside of L.A. is coming back more rapidly than downtown L.A., for example. I think that's the case in a lot of places, but it's still evolving. We'll see, and I'll let the office guys comment on that, how long they think it's going to take and when it's going to happen. But I don't think 100% work from home is going to be around with very many companies, at least for a long term, maybe short term. And I think most companies like Macerich, we've adapted, and we still have the same demand for office space we had pre-COVID. It may be configured differently, it may be used on different days, but it's still the same size and same demand. 

Spencer Levy
Let's talk about the future of retail, Tom. I think you are always thinking about the future of retail as you talked about the different uses. What about different markets? If you're a smaller market, like a Boise or Nashville was 15 years ago, what's the future of retail there? 

Tom O'Hern 
Well, look, I think brick and mortar retail is going to survive and it's going to survive in most markets, particularly growing markets. I mean, you look at what the demand was in Nashville 15 years ago. It was probably nothing compared to what it is today. And Boise could be next. So it's all a question of whether that's a small city on the rise or a small city on the decline in terms of the demand for retail. But I think, again, if COVID showed us anything, it's the value of brick and mortar retail and being able to physically go in and try something or try something on or feel the fabric or look at the color or see the fit. That's not going to go away. So I think there's going to be demand for retail space around the country. It may take a different format. Those centers may be smaller, may be more food and beverage oriented, more entertainment oriented, less traditional apparel. And I think it makes sense in most of those markets. I mean, we picked the Northeast and California and Arizona because they're good markets for us. They're fast growing markets. They tend to be bigger. And typically when a retailer comes from Europe, for example, to the United States, they start in the Northeast and then they move to California and then they fill in the middle. So from our view, it's a good place to be and it's a good way to have our portfolio concentrated. But that doesn't mean that I don't believe retail will do well in the rest of the country. I think it will. 

Spencer Levy 
We talked a little bit about the bigger picture of technology, of attracting new tenants. We talked about technology in the context of the Internet. Now let's talk about the consumer experience in a Macerich product. Tell us about some of the things that makes a Macerich product a unique experience for the consumer. 

Tom O'Hern 
Well, I think the first thing that's necessary is a good backbone in the center, because every consumer under the age of 40 that comes in is going to be looking at their phone 50% of the time. And if your Wi-Fi is not working well and they can't get streaming or whatever they're using or even looking up the discount coupons for their various retailers, you're not going to keep them as long as you'd like to keep them. So number one is, have good systems in place so that the consumer can continue to surf or stream or do whatever they're doing. You know, that's important. Obviously, everybody's got a good Internet presence. Everybody's got a good website. Other things we do, we have a lot of digital displays, which are really driven off of technology and consumers find them interesting. And we make a lot of money with our digital displays. And so that's a situation where we've been able to give the consumer something that's visually interesting and at the same time make money at it. And there's going to be more and more examples like that, automated parking systems, things of that nature. So we use technology as a tool to generate more revenues, more profitability, and we're very open to new ideas and technology that comes our way. And we have a lot of examples in a lot of different areas of our company of that. 

Spencer Levy 
Last big picture question before I ask for your final thoughts. Tom, it's fair to say that we always live in unusual times. We just came out of the pandemic and now we're in the midst of this inflationary period where we don't know where the Fed's going to end. How do you see the market today? How do you see the consumer going forward, and what are the risks and opportunities of that? 

Tom O'Hern 
So you're absolutely right, Spencer. This is a unique environment we're in. We've never had a pandemic followed by Fed tightening, followed by what is likely to be a recession of some depth or duration. And if you look back at the Fed's behavior going back to 1955, every time they've pushed rate like this, we've gone into some form of recession. In some cases short, other cases a little bit longer. The Great financial crisis was one of the longer periods of recessionary times. It ran almost two years. But here we have a situation where we went into a mild recession during the pandemic. A lot of people didn't focus on that. But technically there was. I think when the Fed is done, if not before, it's not during, we're going to see some level of recession. But the consumer has proven to be incredibly resilient coming out of COVID. I mean, they came back with a vengeance when COVID was over. And, look, I'm a healthy skeptic and I look at the leasing volumes and activity and the retailer demand and think, how can the consumer keep going? But the reality is, the consumer has kept going. And if that's the case, we may be in for a light recession. You know, who knows on that? But from our standpoint, we feel like we're incredibly well positioned because during this period of high leasing demand, we've leased over 2 million square feet that are… the leases have been signed, but the space isn’t open paying rent yet, because of the buildout. Some of these are the more elaborate build outs like SCHEELS Sporting Goods, for example. Lifetime fitness. Those buildings take a while to build. So they're in our pipeline. We've seen the deals. They’re contractual, but the rent hasn't started yet. So we feel like we're uniquely positioned should we get hit by a recession to weather that, keep our occupancy up, keep our net operating income growing and get through it. And I don't know if I'd bet against the consumer right now. Even in the face of high interest rates. Even with the current macroeconomic gloom, the consumer has been there and they've been resilient and they've been strong. 

Spencer Levy 
Tom, let me just ask you a wrap up question. Final thoughts on the future of retail. Any other big picture decisions Macerich may be making down the line. Five years from now, if we're having this same conversation on The Weekly Take, what do we see in retail then? 

Tom O'Hern 
I think there's incredible leasing volumes today, given all the negativity. Much of that leasing activity really is new uses, fitness center, coworking, hotels, multifamily. I think as we look back five years from now, we will have seen a lot of that be developed, and if those types of nontraditional uses are 20% of a town center's net operating income today, say 15% today, they could double in five years. They could be as much as 30% five years from now, for A-quality. Again, I want to differentiate your A-quality town centers/ regional malls are going to continue to diversify, densify, get more interesting, and be better properties. And I think that's going to continue for five years and beyond. There's an interesting thing. You say, oh, how can you see that far in advance? If you go back to 1998, July of 98, on the cover of Time magazine, the founder of Yahoo! was on a surfboard, effectively surfing the net, and the caption was “kiss your mall goodbye”. That was 25 years ago and we're still around. 

Spencer Levy 
Well, that's a pretty good indicator that sometimes the hip idea of the day, night isn't necessarily going to be the death knell of the old school. Sometimes the future looks a whole lot more like the past than we think. 

Tom O'Hern 
Absolutely. 

Spencer Levy 
On behalf of The Weekly Take, I want to thank Tom O'Hern, the CEO of Macerich, one of the largest owners of retail A-quality regional malls in the United States. What a great conversation today, Tom. Thank you very much. 

Tom O'Hern 
Thank you, Spencer. I've enjoyed it. 

Spencer Levy 
For more on malls and related content about retail and more, please visit our website, CBRE.com/TheWeeklyTake. We’ll keep talking shop about commercial real estate on next week's show and beyond, with programs that feature deep insights into office, life sciences, CBRE’s broader economic outlook, and lots more. For now, we hope you'll share this episode and we encourage you to reach out with the “Talk to Us” button on our home page. One click to send your thoughts or questions directly to our team. We'd love to hear from you. Finally, as always, don't forget to subscribe, rate and review The Weekly Take wherever you listen. Thanks for joining us. I'm Spencer Levy. Be smart. Be safe. Be well.