Stuart Tanz, president and CEO of Retail Opportunity Investments Corp. (NASDAQ: ROIC), joined REIT.com for a CEO Spotlight video interview at REITWorld 2016: NAREIT’s Annual Convention for All Things REIT at the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge.
Tanz said 2016 has been an active year for acquisitions, with approximately $300 million of shopping centers purchased through early November.
In terms of geographic retail trends, Tanz noted that grocery tenants in the Pacific Northwest continue to be the most active. Health clubs, beauty stores and urgent care tenants are prevalent in Northern California, while restaurant tenants are setting the pace in Southern California.
“The fundamentals have been very, very strong out west,” Tanz said. This has enabled ROIC to post some of the strongest metrics in the sector, he added.
While market conditions do vary on the West Coast, “what we continue to see is that these markets have held up,” and that isn’t likely to change in 2017, according to Tanz.