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LAS VEGAS-GlobeSt.com caught up with a few key industry executives at the ICSC RECon 2013 show here in Vegas including Jones Lang LaSalle southwest market director Peter Belisle. One key retail trend on Belisle's mind was about how to get creative when thinking about ground floor retail in suburban office space.

“With first floor common areas being underutilized in many suburban office buildings, we believe there is an opportunity for landlords to generate excitement by creating collaborative spaces like couches and WiFi and partnering with emerging, local restaurant brands that produce cachet beyond the traditional 'food cart' concept,” Belisle explains. “The purpose to create a sense of 'place' in a common area that may be underutilized.”

This service, he says, would also help create a buzz with visitors and prospective tenants. He adds that JLL is actually in preliminary talks with several institutional landlords about developing a pilot program for their portfolio around this concept. “We are also talking with restaurants about this idea,” he says.

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And over at the Woodmont Co. booth was Stephen Coslik, chairman of the firm, who tells us that overall, activity at the RECon event “has been strong and positive.”

Coslik is seeing a high level of retailer interest, “especially at our ground up developments throughout the country.”

But retailers, he notes, are still very selective, but they are “in need of high quality growth opportunities.” Deal terms, he adds, “are improving slightly for landlords with some upward movement with rents and moderate reduction in incentives.”