SAN FRANCISCO—Wouldn't it be convenient if someone hadclear, intelligent answers to most of your CRE-related questions?Problem solved. Nina J. Gruen, a.k.a. Ms. Real Estate, a.k.a. theprincipal sociologist overseeing market research and analysis atGruen Gruen + Associates, is here to answer readers'questions.

Dear Ms. Real Estate:

I own an 80,000-square-foot community shopping center located ina suburban community. My closest competitor is five miles away. Ourtown's current population is approximately 75,000, and is addingbetween 500 and 1,000 new residents annually. A four-year collegeis located not too distant from our center. Some of my tenants havelease renewals as of January 1, 2015, and quite a few more onJanuary 1, 2016. Several have already indicated they are unlikelyto renew their leases because both the recent Great Recession andInternet have hurt their bottom line. My largest tenant is CVS,which apparently is doing OK, and the center's overall occupancy isat 89%. What advice can you give me to help me survive the Internetage – particularly given the nearby younger population?

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Nina J. Gruen

Nina J.Gruen has been the Principal Sociologist in charge of market research and analysis at Gruen Gruen + Associates (GG+A) since co-founding the firm in 1970. Ms. Gruen applies the analytical techniques of the social sciences to estimating the demand for real estate and to understanding the culture of the groups who determine the success of development, planning, and public policy decisions. She is a pioneer in synthesizing the results of behavioral research with quantitative time-series data to forecast market reactions. Market and community attitude evaluations and programming studies led by Nina Gruen have resulted in the development and redevelopment of many retail, office, industrial, visitor, and residential projects, varying in scale from a single building to large single- and mixed-use projects.