Landlords do not treat all prospective tenants the same, according to Mauro Padula, vice-president of leasing at SmartCentres.
Tenants that are considered cool and are likely to give a shopping centre the wow factor are more apt to get slightly better inducements, he said at a November 24 networking event hosted by the International Council of Shopping Centres.
“If Apple came to us, we might just do something special for them,” he said.
Other U.S. retailers have recently been trying to get special deals, likely because the retail leasing market is so much worse south of the border.
The key thing, Padula said, is not where the company’s head office is based but rather when the prospective tenant wants to enter a development and whether its brand brings excitement.
Retailers that want to enter a mature development are less likely to extract perks from landlords than they are if they enter the development when it’s new, he said.
SmartCentres is Canada’s largest developer and operator of non-enclosed shopping centres. It manages and has developed more than 200 retail centres.