A large real estate company was interested in assessing leasing pricing strategy for Saifi Village, Beirut Souks, and the Foch / Allenby area. The project entailed that InfoPro 1) Provide an overview of malls which The company considers to be competition including retail mix, units sizes, foot fall among other pertinent issues 2) Identify the rental rates for retail real estate in competitive malls 3) Identify the rental rates of street front outlets located in Foch/Allenby, Park Avenue, and Saifi neighborhood. To gather and validate relevant data, InfoPro relied on three sources of information 1) Desk research 2) Mapping outlets at competitive malls 3) In-depth Interviews with mall developers and 4) In-depth Interviews with retailers. The desk research provided an overview of the existing shopping malls and specifically their gross leasable area, number of outlets, retail mix etc. While the mapping exercise helped InfoPro identify the retail mix of competing malls. InfoPro supplemented the desk research and the mapping exercise with interviews with the mall developers to gather information on the sales rate, vacancy vs. occupancy rates, and yearly footfall at each of the existing malls. InfoPro also carried-out interviews with retailers available in shopping malls and main retail areas. The aim of the interviews will was two-fold: 1) to confirm the information provided by the mall developers (for those located in malls) and 2) to provide information on the rent / charges that they are paying, size of their outlets, types of contracts that they have among other details which the mall developers might not divulge. The above allowed the company to plan its leasing strategy for Beirut Souks and for its outlets in the Foch/Allenby, Park Avenue, and Saifi neighborhood.
