The Howard Group Management Company was hired by a predecessor to Bank of America (North Caroline National Bank), to assist in evaluation of a portfolio of properties that were inherited as a result of a merger into NCNB. This portfolio, consisting of 23 properties throughout the southeastern United States consisted of shopping centers, office buildings, single tenant free standing buildings, vacant land and industrial buildings. While many were occupied, most were in dire need of updating and repositioning within their respective markets.
The Howard Group Management team undertook a program to individually assess each of the properties to determine their appeal to the market, and the elements impacting the ability to market them in order to remove them from the lender’s ownership position.
The services necessary to develop a program to rework or ready the properties into a state whereby they could be marketed and sold was the primary goal. It was a difficult task due to the “down market” for investment real estate.
Our program involved performing an assessment of the individual attributes and detriments of each of the properties and developing a program that would lead to bringing the properties into a condition whereby we were able to market the properties and eventually bring them to a successful sale transaction.
These efforts included the following:
- Developing tenant rosters
- Establishing rent rolls
- Lease reviews
- Discovery of lease limitations and obligations
- Market appeal of the properties
- Market reviews in order to ascertain the demand for the space types within the marketplace and their respective anticipated market rents
- Verification of zoning compliance
- Lease audits
- Building inspections
- Code compliance review
Property Management & Marketing Goals Process
For the retail properties, the program consisted of lease review, meeting with the anchor tenants and making a determination with the tenants to renew, predicated on meeting their needs. The bulk of the retail facilities, which were grocery store anchored, resulted in determination that many of the grocery presentations were old, under sized, and lacking in appeal to the market. The Howard Group Management Company worked with the real estate and operations departments to develop plans to expand and modify and renew the appeal of the anchor tenants.
By creating these programs, we were able to redevelop many of the retail properties, with larger grocery store anchors, drug stores and certain soft goods retailers which were seeking representation within the marketplaces. The “reshuffling” of the tenants, creating a more market sensitive tenant mix, resulted in a substantial success, once the facilities were completely remodeled and reopened.