Big box closures cause conundrum for real estate lawyers

Daily Journal (September 10, 2014) As the retail industry transforms, real estate lawyers in California are facing a growing number of empty big-box stores. As Internet retailers gain prominence and consumer tastes change, many landlords of large retail centers, who depend on their largest tenants to attract consumer activity to their premises, are finding themselves in the dilemma of having to acquire new tenants for the large vacated facilities. Lawyers throughout the state report a rise in the instances of structural carve-ups as a solution to dealing with the empty big-box conundrum. Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis LLP partner Drew M. Emmel said he has worked on multiple carve-ups in the past two years, including two in Northern California. "In both cases," he said, "we were able to find a grocery store that could come in. Then there is all this extra space. It could have just gone to waste but we were able to carve out additional shops."