Hap Stein, chairman and CEO of Regency Centers Corp. (Nasdaq: REG), joined Nareit in New York for a video interview at REITweek: 2019 Investor Conference.
Grocery chains are located at 80% of Regency shopping centers. Stein said Regency’s grocery tenants are adapting well to the changing retail landscape and “know that the store is where they can really distinguish themselves with the customer, through the store experience, through value, and through service.”
Stein also noted that Regency plans to start and deliver on $1.25 billion of value-add development and redevelopment projects over the next five years. “We can self-fund it with $170 million of free cash flow on an extremely favorable basis, where we don’t have to go to the balance sheet, we don’t have to sell properties.”
Several years ago, most of Regency’s developments were ground-up, Stein said, whereas today redevelopment accounts for the majority of projects.