Kimco. I'm Lizzie Doyon. I work with Jeff Spector, and we cover the retail REITs at BofA. Joining us today is Conor Flynn, CEO, Ross Cooper, President and Chief Investment Officer, Glenn Cohen, Executive VP and CFO, and Dave Bujnicki, Head of Investor Relations. With that, I'll turn it over to the team to start off with any opening remarks about the company, and maybe if you've come to the conference with any kind of business update.
Thanks, Lizzie. Appreciate it. We're all very excited to be here, and thank you all for participating. Kimco is really well positioned. We've got an extraordinary portfolio of grocery-anchored shopping centers that we believe are well positioned to showcase growth in the coming years. Obviously, the big announcement just recently was the merger announcement with RPT. We're very excited about that opportunity. When you look at the overlapping assets of over 70% in our target markets, the RPT assets are over 90% grocery-anchored. Again, pushing that strategy of ours of grocery anchor in those strategic markets. We feel like our platform is in very strong shape to create a lot of value there.
The occupancy levels on RPT's portfolio are over 200 basis points below Kimco's, and feel like the blocking and tackling of leasing is what we do best at Kimco, and feel like we have focused on executing that in the near term. We highlighted the synergies analysis that we that we anticipate closing in on the first year. We gave ourselves 85% on the the synergies that we anticipate in the merger. Feel good about, you know, understanding the markets and where we plan on executing the disposition plan on a number of Midwest assets.
And feel there's a lot of work to be done on the integration, but since we've done the Weingarten deal, we feel like we have a good playbook and a lot of lessons learned and ways to do it expeditiously and effectively.
Can I ask that question, I guess? Could you talk about some of those lessons learned, and-
Sure.
-which gave you the comfort to, to merge with, RPT?
A lot of lessons learned in the Weingarten transaction, obviously. You know, if you look back at that transaction, it was very focused on Sun Belt and coastal markets that we wanted to continue to add portfolio priority to. When you look at the integration factors, I always say it's all about drafting an all-star team. Doesn't matter what hat you were in before, you really wanna attract and retain the best talent going forward. And we acquired some wonderful assets, but also some wonderful people that are leading different departments in Kimco going forward, and I think the same calls for RPT.
Clearly, there's a lot of benefits and efficiencies of scale, and a lot of the investment we've made in technology allows us to move quickly and give us the opportunity to integrate. And when you look at the integration of Weingarten and how we crystallized the synergies above what we anticipated and earlier than anticipated, it gives us a lot of cautious optimism of high opportunity for success on the RPT side.
By the way, we do wanna make this interactive, so if there are questions in the room, feel free to raise your hand. Sorry, Lizzie, go ahead.
Yeah, no worries. Can you discuss the timing for the realization of the $34 million in synergies that you've all spoken to?
Yeah
-from RPT? Maybe an idea of costs or really the details of what to expect as we head into the back half of this year.
Sure. So we have to close the transaction beginning of 2024. We gave ourselves 85% on the first year in terms of the synergies numbers. So we do have hopefully the ability to potentially execute on that quickly and efficiently. We do believe we've hit the ground running, obviously, with the process that's in place and have an integration team already working through those analysis. Some of the things that we've found to the benefit of these synergies is some of the contracts are shorter in term in nature. So some of the Weingarten contracts were longer term, three to five years, whereas the RPT contracts are more one to two. So you get the ability to crystallize that sooner.
Yeah, I mean, a large portion of the synergies really is G&A related, so you'll, you'll get that, get that pretty quickly. You know, we'll have... Assuming we close in the beginning of the beginning of the first quarter, you know, we'll have a little bit of transition time to wrap things up on their end, but overall, we expect to be able to achieve about 85% of the synergies in the first year.
Just to clarify, the synergy amount we're talking about is about $34 million.
One of your peers said, you know, in his view, there's limited upside in doing public to public. Again, Weingarten, there's been, besides the initial synergies you've laid out, there's been lots of benefits. So, you know, what is your- what's your pushback on that comment?
So the key is not to just bulk up and get bigger for bigger sake. It's really all about, does it improve the growth profile and the quality perspective of the combined organization going forward? And we learned a lot through Weingarten, that if you can have a strategy and execute it quickly, you really can reap the rewards of a larger portfolio in these key markets that have high barriers to entry. And I think the beauty of our business right now is there's virtually no new supply, and there has been a lack of new supply for over a decade. And so our strategy is fairly simple. We look at the major metro markets and look at that first- ring as a way of really, you know, looking at the highest and best use of our real estate.
The shopping centers typically are single story, you know, 80% of it is parking lot, and it gives you a lot of flexibility and optionality to create value on the remainder of the asset as we work through entitlements for the highest and best use. That's what we found a lot of upside in, in the Weingarten portfolio, because of our platform, because of our focus on redevelopment. The value add perspective is actually larger than we anticipated, and you've seen it with our entitlement program. You know, we anticipate getting to 12,000 apartment units entitled and built by 2025. We continue to see that there's a lot of embedded value throughout the portfolio, especially in that first- ring, 'cause COVID did a lot of things, you know, crystallized a lot of value for shopping centers.
But one of the things that occurred was there was a lot of movement to that first-r ing suburb. And so there's been a lot of additional density being built in that first-r ing suburb, and many times the shopping center is the hole in the donut, where there's a lot of assets that have gone vertical around us, and so we can benefit from that in the future by activating parking lots, doing apartment towers like we've done, or selling air rights.
Are you going to keep those apartments?
Yes, we believe the apartments are synergistic with the retail. A lot of times, apartments are priced on the amenity package and the location of where they are. And if you think about what a shopping center offers, we have unmatched amenities. There's only a finite amount of apartment towers that can offer a grocery store, a fitness facility, you know, a coffee shop. But when you have 50+ retail tenants as your amenity package, it's pretty tough to be outpositioned. And usually, that allows you to. And we've seen our thesis was we would be able to charge a premium on those apartments because of that amenity package. And thus far, of the 2,000+ apartments we've built, we've been able to achieve that.
From a leasing standpoint, you know, is there anything that Kimco, let's say, you felt was doing better than Weingarten? Or maybe you found some things that Weingarten was doing that you, you're now doing, and/or, you know, same with RPT. Again, just another, you know, way to think about it. Hard from our seat to tell everyone, you know, we have our March retail event, and everyone pitches how great their platforms are, and they're, you know, they're all everyone's doing it the best way.
I think there's a lot of value to having the ability to sit with a retailer that has a large store opening plan on a regularly occurring basis, and go through their markets where they want to expand and showcase the portfolio that we have, and be able to make it efficient for them to be able to achieve their store opening plans with one counterparty that can offer the lion's share of the opportunity. And we're seeing that continuing going forward as we sit and use our technology and our data analytics to our advantage. We understand this retailer has opening plans for certain markets. We sit with them, we showcase where their customer lives, works, and plays. We showcase the assets that we have in those markets.
We showcase the, you know, the opportunity for leasing, and we can make it very efficient for them. And the other piece of that we've been focused on is making sure we look at the deal curve and try and compress that deal curve in all points along the way. So from first asset tour to first LOI, to signing of the LOI, to signing of the lease, to starting the construction, to building out the construction, to getting the rent commencing and the store opening, that's a long deal curve, and we have expediters along that entire curve to try and make sure that we make it as efficient as possible.
I think for the first time in a long time, I think retailers are recognizing it's important to know who your landlord is, because there's a lot of inefficiencies right now with municipalities, potentially some liquidity issues on some private owners. And it's very important to align yourself with a landlord that's gonna fulfill their commitments and do it in a timely fashion. Because not only do they have to hit their store count numbers, they have to hit their store count numbers in the year that they've promised, 'cause they're public, typically, or they have, you know, external growth numbers that they have to hit. And a lot of times, inefficient landlords may not be able to hit those because of delays in getting, you know, the labor or the goods that they need.
[audio distortion] remaining Bed Bath & Beyond boxes within your portfolio, as we're sitting here today in August? And how comfortable are you with the exposure you're getting from RPT, plus their Tuesday Morning exposure?
Yeah, well, it's again going back to a lack of new supply. That's really sort of obviously the major benefit that high-quality, open-air shopping centers are benefiting from. There's a lack of really good quality retail right now, and there's nothing new on the horizon that's coming in. So of the deals that we've executed, we've been able to put on the Bed Bath boxes new leasing spreads of over 30%, and continue to think the pricing power is very squarely in the landlord's camp. And so we have conviction that we're gonna be able to fill those relatively quickly. We have good, good deal flow on each and every Bed Bath box that we have. Thus far, you've seen it been a spread of different retailers. It's not just concentrated with one retailer.
There's a lot of, I think, breadth and depth of demand that we're taking advantage of, and continue to feel confident that, you know, with the lack of new supply and the demand staying strong, that we should be able to execute that in a timely fashion. You know, we're getting close to an all-time high occupancy, which might be surprising to some. But when you get to a point where the anchor boxes, which is typically above 10,000 sq ft , when those hit close to 99%, it's really the upside then, is gonna be on the small shop side. And there's really, in my opinion, there's no reason where your, your small shop all-time high previously was 91%.
With the breadth and depth of demand on the small shop side, I think that's really sort of one uncaptured area of upside that's really gonna drive growth going forward for us. 'Cause if you think about what consumers are looking for today, it's a combination of convenience and value, and I think the local shopping center is perfectly positioned for that. And you look at the uses that are coming in, you're seeing much more medical uses coming in, urgent care facilities, pediatric urgent care facilities, health and wellness concepts, physical therapy, optometrists, dentists, you name it. There's, like, a whole host of new uses that are coming in to, again, make the shopping center a convenient and value proposition play, and that's why I think the small shop piece of it has actually gone somewhat unnoticed. That's gonna be a future upside potential.
... Does that include the RPT portfolio as well?
Yeah, the RPT portfolio has even further upside. So on the small shop side, they're only 85% leased. And when you look at the overlapping assets that we have with RPT, they're 90% grocery anchored in our markets, and we feel like we can really use our platform to go and push those occupancies up to Kimco's level. You know, there's some great markets there, great opportunities for growth, and we feel very comfortable with the underwriting and the assumptions we've made there.
On densification, this morning, we had a housing panel with the Bank of America Institute, and they were talking really that we're at the front edge of millennials moving to the burbs. And, you know, so have you quantified or are you able to quantify, let's say, you know, you have your internal growth, you know, whatever, for so many years, like, what is the opportunity set for Kimco over a five-year or ten-year period in terms of this densification? How much extra growth could it bring to, let's say, earnings?
Yeah, the future upside is definitely embedded in the entitlement side. That, again, is above and beyond sort of the blocking and tackling of leasing up the vacancies that we have. And I think that's where we're continuing to unlock that potential going forward. Now, part of the REIT structure that's challenging is you get rewarded for cash flow growth. You don't get rewarded for development CapEx that has to go out, that's not returning anything for multiple years. And so one of the ways we've looked at ways to unlock that value, you can sell the entitlement rights, which we've done. We've sold entitlement rights for office that we didn't want to develop and are happy we offloaded those. We've ground leased residential and hotel apartments entitlements.
So again, if we don't want to take on the construction, development, and leasing risk, we can activate the project on our site through a ground lease structure, and we've done that with a number of hotels. We get the right of first refusal on that, so again, they're at a leasehold position. If they ever go to monetize, we can collapse it back into the fee position, and there should be a spread there. One of the ways that we're looking at activating more going forward is in a joint venture structure, where we contribute the land at a marked-up basis to get credit for the entitlements that we put in place, 'cause we put it in as a shovel-ready product.
Typically, multifamily expert comes in, does the leasing, the development, the construction, and we have a, you know, again, ability to put in preferred equity. So we get a current return on that project versus waiting for the cash flow to come online. So these are different ways we've structured, and again, we're cautiously optimistic, but the entitlements is the key piece, 'cause once you get the entitlements, there's usually no shelf life. So longer term, we should be able to activate those or monetize those, the best way forward for our shareholders.
Speaking of the entitlement rates, I know a big opportunity for Kimco could be Mary Brickell, like you're getting from RPT. Can you share a bit more about what you see, what you envision for that site and what makes it so appealing?
Yeah, we're very excited about Mary Brickell Village. You know, it's RPT's crown jewel. It's in a joint venture with GIC. GIC, I think, is the cherry on top of the deal, 'cause obviously, they're a deep-pocketed investor that wanna put more capital to work in grocery-anchored shopping centers. And, at a time where, you know, external growth may be challenged for some, you know, it's always nice to have a partner that's ready and willing to deploy more capital. Mary Brickell Village is a unique asset. If you haven't been there, we're gonna be doing multiple tours of the asset, in the near term, once the deal closes.
Where are we off to?
Yeah. So it's in Brickell, in Miami.
Yeah. And so it's, Citadel's new HQ is going up right next to it. And so it's got sort of a lot of benefits of having these towers go up around it. It's a Publix-anchored center. It's almost bifurcated into two assets. The Publix-anchored side is really... There's a tremendous amount of upside on the leasing. The new leasing spreads there have been phenomenal. There's a lot of new leasing being done that's at, you know, first to market, high-end retailers coming in, thinking that this is really sort of the 50-yard line of where they wanna be in Miami. The upside is really in the 4 million sq ft of additional air rights. That's as of right, in the zoning.
So, when you look at, you know, the two pieces of the puzzle there, one side of the asset doesn't have any leases beyond the 10-year weighted average lease term. It's a nice way to line up leasing, maturing, and then be able to go vertical in the future. You know, the renderings and the massing plans, you could do two 98-story towers there as of right, with all residential, or you could do residential and hotel. Or if, you know, if people wanna do an office tower and wanna pay us a big sum for that, we could, you know, everything is on the table. There's no sacred cows. It's one that we're looking at all the different options, and we're excited about, you know, digging in there and creating a lot of value for our shareholders over the long term.
On the entitlements, do you quantify or tell the street, you know, the worth of the entitlements at this point that Kimco has, like, per share?
Yeah, we do. We have walked through the whether it's the apartments or the hotel opportunities on the upside there, and the valuation of each of those units on a per unit basis. So, one way to do it is look at, like, sort of the—we've got, you know, 2,400 units built. We're building over 1,000 units currently. We've already entitled 5,311 units, and we've got about 3,200 in the pipeline to be entitled. And what we do is we try and walk investors through the value of each of those units.
So depending on the area and the trade area and the comps surrounding those areas, you know, we typically walk through, you know, somewhere between 25,000-55, 000 per unit, depending on which market you're talking about. So you can extrapolate a value on the entitlement side that we've been focused on.
... Anybody ask you about the books?
Yes, we do. We'll give you one. Yep.
Conor, I'm sorry if I missed this earlier.
Yeah.
With respect to the RPT acquisition, are there markets you're going to sell some assets on? I just especially thinking of Detroit-
Yeah
[audio distortion]
So we do like the portfolio, the RPT portfolio. You know, the overlapping ones that I mentioned, 70% of the portfolio is overlapping Kimco, and that's 90% grocery anchored. Of the 30% that's in the Midwest, you know, over 40% is that, is, is grocery anchored. So we're going through asset by asset, and, you know, the implied cap rate that we purchased the whole company at, or that we have under contract to purchase the, the, the whole company at, is, is north of an 8. So we feel like it gives us a sizable cushion in terms of identifying and executing on dispositions and having it still be very accretive to the, to the, to the organization going forward. But Ross, you wanna walk through some of the assets?
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think some of the—that one of the nice parts about this portfolio is when you look at some of the transformation that they've done, very similar to the transformation that Kimco has undergone over the last five to seven years. So even though there are certain assets that are still within markets that geographically we may not look to, to stay in long term, when you go asset by asset, we've created a strategy for each and every property, and you get very comfortable with the quality of that portfolio. We've also, when you look at the cap rate that is being paid on the implied cap rate of the entire portfolio and go asset by asset, there's a pretty significant spread, and that's just sort of showcasing some of that public and private dislocation that we see in the marketplace today.
So the good news is that there's essentially no distress in their portfolio. We can be extremely methodical in how and when we look to exit some of these assets and the timing of such. The other advantage that I think that we have when you look at our investment strategy and some of the pillars that we've undertaken to invest capital over time, as we're looking to potentially divest certain assets, we can also look to utilize our structured investment program. If we see future upside, potentially keeping a slice of preferred equity or mezzanine financing to help consummate the deal and still retain a piece of the backend participation. We do have a lot of optionality, and I think we'll look to execute on that over, you know, the course of time.
Back to the densifications. I guess, what's the, you know, competitive landscape? You know, Simon's talking about densification efforts, not so many of your peers, but like, I guess, how does... Yeah, but there is a lot of apartment supply in the Sun Belt. Like, how do we - how should we think about that?
Yeah, we're very focused on each and every asset as its own analysis of understanding how much supply is coming online in a market, what's the cost and the return on capital that's going into these projects. And I think that, again, we're being very methodical about how much we activate at any point in time. If you look at our total redevelopment spend, it's actually quite modest versus what it's been in the past. And we try and make sure that in the REIT world, we're in a position where we unlock the value without diluting the FFO growth. And so that's sort of been what we've been monitoring, as well as the supply in the certain markets.
So we have just put into service the Milton, which is our new apartment tower at Pentagon , which is the second one that we've activated there. Very successful in the lease-up so far. Relatively quickly, in terms of over 60% leased, and we've raised rents a number of times already. Benefiting from Amazon HQ2 coming online, obviously, right next door, and we had the first tower there be very successful as well. The next project to come out of the ground that we're just demolished and get pad ready is Suburban Square, very high-end area on the Main Line, in Ardmore. We have a Trader Joe's and a Lifetime and an Apple store, and those units will be obviously towards the higher end.
We feel very good about the lack of supply in some of these markets that are very tight to begin with. And so each and every market is its own individual analysis. If there's a market that we feel like might be, you know, oversupplied, we're not under any pressure to activate any of these. And so again, we feel very comfortable that we can have a cadence to activate the low-hanging fruit and wait for potentially other markets to mature and feel like there's a better entry point for us.
Do you have any other projects in the Philly area?
We have Lincoln Square in Center City, Philly, where we did the Sprouts Farmers Market, PetSmart, and did about 330 units above that. That's been a big success and is very strong, you know, both on the occupancy side and on the same-store NOI side. We did just acquire Fishtown, which is a great area of Philly as well, where we have a grocery-anchored store there, that could potentially, in time, it's not entitled right now, but it's in Fishtown, which is obviously one of the hottest markets in Philly. So we have a number of assets, whether it's Philly or elsewhere, that we can have longer term plans to activate. What we try and do is make sure on the leasing front, we try and gain control over whether it's the parking lot or whether a certain area where we feel it's ripe for redevelopment over the long term.
I know there's limited transactions, but I guess in terms of, you know, a premium for these - for a successful, let's call it, what, mixed-use center or lifestyle center, what... I don't know if there's a particular name, but is there, you know, a premium for those properties in terms of cap rates? You know, is there evidence of that today, or, you know, again, there's limited transactions, but over the next 5-10 years, you really see that these projects are the home run?
... Yeah, and I think that's part of the thesis that we see. I mean, historically, the different components have sold independently. So retail operators have not really been participating in the multifamily, and multifamily developers and owners don't necessarily wanna participate in the retail. We think that's a special expertise that we bring, where we can get very comfortable with both pieces. And over the coming years, we think that there's going to be more transactions on holistically, as opposed to in pieces. You actually asked the question about Lincoln Square. That was a project that we got involved. The developer was not interested in the retail component, and we negotiated to participate in the entirety of it, and we think we're seeing tremendous benefit from being able to do that.
So as Conor mentioned, there's tremendous synergy between having the amenity of the retail and the multifamily. You see it in the retail rents, you see it in the multifamily rents. So being able to control the whole ecosystem will definitely create value as we continue to grow the program.
Yes, while we're. Oh, please, Lizzie.
This is just turning to the transactions market. You did close on the acquisition of Stonebridge before RPT was announced. So just wondering if you can give some details on the pricing there, and maybe if that deal was more reflective of what you see as, like, current market conditions.
Sure. Happy to talk about that one. It did get lost in the shuffle a little bit, announced a couple of days before the RPT transaction. But it's times, in periods of time of dislocation, where we've been able to consummate our best transactions. And looking at the fundamentals of our business today, they're as strong as they've been in many years. But the capital markets are clearly somewhat dislocated. So larger transactions, whether it be the RPT transaction, where, you know, a $2 billion+ transaction is very difficult for a private investor, but we've had the ability to utilize our currency and our equity to consummate a deal that, from our perspective, is significantly below NAV.
You look at the Stonebridge acquisition, which we announced, which is a 500,000 sq ft, Wegmans-anchored asset outside of D.C. in Virginia, and that's a situation where it's a $172 million acquisition. So there aren't many other groups that we were competing with on that, that have the cash on their balance sheet, that they can close in 45 days from handshake to closing, and cut a check, you know, straight from balance sheet with no finance contingency, no equity that needed to be raised. So to be able to acquire that asset at, at north of a seven cap, from our perspective, was a, a very accretive buy, and one that was able to be consummated because of the deal size, giving us the advantage.
On the flip side of the coin, you're still seeing very aggressive pricing for neighborhood, primarily grocery-anchored shopping centers in our core markets. We're actually close to closing on a sale, in one of our joint ventures, of a grocery-anchored asset in Southern California that's going to trade in the low-five cap range. So to be able to recycle capital from a sale at that pricing, at that cap rate, into a much higher yield on a very high-quality core asset, which also does have the densification opportunity that we've been talking about.
Not only do you have a Wegmans in the Stonebridge asset that we acquired, as well as sort of a lifestyle component with the only Apple in a 40-mi radius, we have a parcel in the rear of the property that is primed for development. It's currently entitled for office. That's not something that we're gonna look to build, but our entitlement team, our development team, is very confident that in a relatively short period of time, we can get that entitled for multifamily, and look to activate that in the next couple of years. So those are the types of opportunities that we're looking to do in this environment.
Yes, please.
How does the low five cap make sense? I mean, what are the underwriting? I mean, the cost of debt, seven, eight, nine. I mean, I just-
Yeah, it's a buyer that is not looking to finance the asset. And I think one of the situations that you see is there have been a fair amount of core funds that have been raised over the last couple of years, particularly for grocery. And there's a lot more demand than there is supply for those assets in the market today. So, it sort of checked the boxes for a couple of these funds, and we were fortunate enough to have a few groups sort of bidding against one another.
On the dislocation, it feels like it's gonna last. So just to confirm, you know, do you sit on the sidelines for a little bit as you you know try to close an RPT and digest RPT, or does Kimco stay active on these, you know, potential singles and doubles out there?
I think we always look to stay active. One of the beauties of the way that the RPT deal was structured is that it really is not flexing our balance sheet. It will be a leverage-neutral transaction, and we still have various different sources of capital. We still retain 14.2 million shares of our Albertsons investment, which we'll look to monetize early next year, which will bring a fair amount of capital into the portfolio. $130 million of free cash flow after dividend, CapEx, TI, leasing commission. So, we still anticipate that there will be a healthy amount of capital that we can put to work.
Clearly, to your point and to the conversation that we're having, we don't anticipate being super competitive with where our cost of capital is today on core neighborhood grocery-anchored shopping centers. But to the extent that there's continued dislocation on larger deals, or we can continue to find opportunity within our Structured Investment Program, where the preferred equity in the mezz financing tends to be double-digit returns and beyond, we absolutely have capital for that type of product.
What are your thoughts on the recent Kroger, Albertsons, divestiture news, and I guess, specifically, your thoughts on C&S taking on foreign, [audio distortion]
... Any worry about their ability to operate those?
Go ahead. I mean, the C&S transaction is very interesting. I mean, again, they announced, you know, it's over 400 stores, but it could grow to as much as 650 stores. I think it does give them the merger, it gives the merger a better chance of potentially getting approved by the FTC. I think that. And then I think that's what they were trying to get to. It's still not approved by the FTC. It's still gonna have to go through that process, and it, you know, it still may wind up in the courts when it's all said and done. But again, I think you have, you know, it's an entity that is proven, has been around for a really long time. And again, the whole objective is for them to be able to compete.
You know, the other approach that was considered was, you know, to do a spin-off that wasn't gonna be as well capitalized. So I think the C&S transaction is really set up to try and get the FTC approval. But we'll see. I mean, it's gonna still take time. I don't think that transaction closes until, you know, sometime in 2024, and I think they, under the merger agreement, they have until October of 2024 to get it completed without anyone else's, you know, extensions of it. But again, I think the investor community looks at it and says it does give it more chance of getting done. If you look at the stock price, it's risen, you know, more recently. It's probably trading around $23 today.
So, I think it just gives the transaction more chance of being approved.
There's not a tremendous lot of overlap in the Kimco portfolio when you look at the Albertsons and the Kroger overlap. So, you know, if the transaction were to go through and C&S becomes a new anchor for Kimco, it really would just be a handful of sites maximum. So it wouldn't necessarily be a big issue for us in terms of a credit risk profile. But the overlap for us was primarily in the Denver trade area and the Southern California trade area. So really strong markets, really strong operating stores, you know, good sales projections... I mean, good sales history, so good assets generally.
Can you touch on the leasing environment that we continue to, you know, hear from investor concerns over store openings and tenant lasts, and, you know, we've been hearing this for the last year plus. So, you know, what are you seeing on the ground? You know, any changes we've, you know, entered September in terms of, you know, strength of leasing?
Sure. There's a number of factors that I think post-COVID, I think, are really important to hit on here in the leasing environment. So virtually no new supply for over a decade, and especially when you look at first-ring suburbs, there's a huge barriers to entry there, and virtually no way to make the economics work in terms of, like, trying to develop new there. So that's obviously helping. Everything is shifting as well to open-air, grocery-anchored shopping centers. So when you look at, you know, what was first, the priority for retailers was put as much capital to work in e-commerce and just have those sales grow as fast as possible, regardless of margin. And so what's happened is now money's not free anymore. It's all focused on margin. You're looking at where the highest margin is as a retailer. Guess what?
The highest margin is back in the store. Then when you layer on the e-commerce on top of the physical store, that's where the last mile store or the store that's located embedded in the community is being used for a distribution and fulfillment point. And if you can get the consumer to drive, it's their gas, their time, and do curbside pickup or a myriad of different options, all of a sudden, that margin continues to grow. So retailers are focused on expanding store count, where their consumers are and where the consumers are, are shopping. And so when you look at the diverse demand drivers today, starts with grocery. You know, clearly there's a lot of grocers out there, but there's a lot of differentiated grocers as well. It's not just the traditional ones, like the Krogers and Albertsons that we've been talking about.
Specialty is quite strong right now. Whole Foods, we just announced a big Whole Foods deal in Denver. Sprouts, we've got a number of deals going. Trader Joe's is very active again. The, the Asian markets are very strong as well, and as well as the discount grocers. Aldi, Lidl, you saw that deal be announced recently with Winn-Dixie and Southeastern Grocers doing that transaction. There's a lot of consolidation, but there's a lot of net new stores opening as well. Later on top of that, the off-price sector, which is really sort of the, call it the treasure hunters, TJ Maxx and all their banners, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, HomeSense, Sierra Trading Post, and then you've got Ross and their two banners. You've got Burlington, you've got Nordstrom Rack.
Those are all. All those banners are doing 100+ net new stores every year. So there's a lot of demand coming out of the off-price sector. Sporting goods, you know, DICK'S, obviously, with their new House of Sport concept, they also have the Golf Galaxy. Academy Sports, wanting to do a lot of net new stores. You're seeing demand drivers from there. Health and beauty continues to be a very strong component of the shopping center. Ulta, for a very long time, was the dominant player. Bath & Body Works and Sephora coming out of the mall, looking at open-air and grocery-anchored shopping centers, continue to be, you know, the focus going forward for their new store opening plans. Service has come back in a big way, right? So think about what happened in COVID.
A lot of people deferred the services part of the business. Now, services have come back. So health and wellness, beauty, you got hair and nail salons, the all the different boutique fitnesses. You know, there's, there's a lot of different players there that are doing a lot of new stores. The restaurant component, the quick service restaurants, you name it, whether it's the burger wars, the chicken wars, the coffee wars, the salad wars, you've got a lot of different players doing a lot of stores there. The dollar stores still are doing 1,000+ net new stores. You've got automotive doing a lot of new stores, whether it's AutoZone, O'Reilly, or Advance Auto. Home improvement, you know, Home Depot, Lowe's, Floor & Decor, they continue to, to do net new stores as well. So you see sort of the broad depth and breadth of the demand side....
The focus of Kimco is trying to have a diversity of amenities that you can offer your shopper, so you drive traffic at all points during the day. And that's where the flywheel that you try and create. You want to have the coffee, the donut, the bagel person in the morning. You want to have that lunch item people are looking for, the grocery component that drives multiple trips a week. You know, the treasure hunter, as I said before, that's the combination that's really driving the sweet spot of demand for us.
Great, thank you. I know we're out of time. Just three very quick rapid-fire questions. Quick responses, please.
So first question on the Fed. Do you believe the Fed is done hiking, yes or no? Do you expect the Fed to cut rates in 2024, yes or no?
I think the Fed is going to pause, but who knows? Like, that's, that's my guess. I don't know if they're done, but I think they're going to pause. On 2024, do I think they're going to cut rates? Probably, probably if they're going to, it'd probably be back half of 2024.
Second, do you believe real estate transactions will meaningfully pick up by the fourth quarter of 2023, the first half of 2024, or the second half of 2024?
I think it'll pick up about half this year. It's definitely by fourth quarter, yep.
Last, are you using AI today to help you run your business, yes or no? Do you plan to ramp up spending on AI over the next year, yes or no?
I think artificial intelligence is extremely impactful, and we're looking at it through all the different workflows and work streams we have at the organization. Right now, we're focused it on the leasing side and on the legal side, so on documentation, data analytics, you know, the chatbots of the world. You know, there's a lot of different things we can use for interaction and data analytics on that for... You know, for the foreseeable future, I think it's going to grow in terms of how important it is.
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, everyone.
Thank you, Ross.
Enjoy the rest of the chat.
All right. Appreciate it.