An experienced shopping center and real estate developer, Elliot Feuerstein has been involved in the business for over 40 years. Elliot Feuerstein’s work history includes development of the Mesa Shopping Center and the Mira Mesa Shopping Center West in San Diego, CA. During his career he has had a front row seat for the so-called retail apocalypse.
The retail apocalypse is the name given to the anticipated mass failure of brick and mortar stores across the US as a result of the growth of Internet shopping, and it first predicted the end of shopping malls as a concept. The reality, however, seems to be much more nuanced.
Far from marking the end of the shopping center, the retail apocalypse seems to have stymied competition and given the larger players new avenues for growth. In such a fecund environment, smaller and less efficient malls were cropping up everywhere, but with narrowing profit margins, most of these small competitors have been forced out. While the brick and mortar pie has certainly shrunk, the big players that remain now have access to a much larger slice of it than before, which may lead to revenues increasing rather than falling.
Elliot Feuerstein 