Asset Classes
Retail
Institutional retail underwriting — pad sites, anchor and co-tenancy economics, grocery-anchored cap rates, big-box re-tenanting, and the STNL credit stack. Built for the 2026 retail cycle.
Retail in 2026 is two different businesses sharing a sector label. On one side: single-tenant net lease and pad sites, which trade as bond proxies inside a 5-component cap-rate build and a 1031 demand floor. On the other: multi-tenant shopping centers, where the anchor pays $8–12/SF, the inline pays $25–45/SF, and the entire deal economics flow through anchor credit, co-tenancy cure mechanics, percentage-rent breakpoints, and the dark-store property-tax-theory backdrop. The 2024–26 vacancy wave (Party City, JOANN, Big Lots, Bed Bath & Beyond) has forced the re-tenanting playbook to the front of every shopping-center underwrite.
These five articles split that retail stack the way institutional underwriters actually split it. Start with the anchor economics and co-tenancy piece if you are reading a shopping-center rent roll. Start with the STNL piece if you are pricing a single-tenant net-leased acquisition or 1031 exchange. The pad-site, grocery-anchored, and dark-store re-tenanting pieces are the specialty layers — each with the 2026 cap-rate stack and a worked institutional example.
5 articles
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Pad Sites & Outparcels: Ground Lease Economics, QSR Credit, and the 2026 Cap Rate Stack
The institutional underwriting framework for outparcels and pad sites: the 2026 QSR cap-rate stack by brand credit (McDonald's GL 4.40%, Chick-fil-A 4.50%, Chipotle 5.45%, Starbucks 6.45%), the 72–90 bps corporate-vs-franchisee guarantee spread, ground-lease mechanics, and the latent monetization wedge inside shopping-center acquisitions.
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Anchor Tenant Economics & Co-Tenancy Clauses: The Cascade That Decides Inline Rent
The unified institutional framework for shopping-center underwriting: why anchors pay $8–12/SF when inline pays $25–45/SF, how co-tenancy clauses transmit anchor risk into inline NOI, the cascade math when an anchor goes dark (50% rent reduction across 30% of GLA → cap-rate shock), 180–365 day cure period optionality, and the TJX/Ross 20x rent-coverage backfill thesis.
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Grocery-Anchored Retail: Below-Market Anchor Rent, Inline Roll-Up, and the 2026 Cap Rate Stack
The institutional underwriting framework for grocery-anchored shopping centers: the 2026 cap-rate stack by anchor tier (Publix and Trader Joe's at 5.5–5.8% vs discount grocery at 7.1%), the below-market anchor rent mechanism that subsidizes the inline rent premium, percentage-rent breakpoint math, lease-form asymmetry (20–30 yr anchor vs 5–7 yr inline), and the institutional anchor-credit hierarchy.
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Dark Store Re-Tenanting: Big-Box Vacancy, Backfill Math, and the 2024–26 Playbook
The institutional re-tenanting playbook for vacated big-box retail: the 2024–26 vacancy wave (Party City 700+, JOANN 800+, Big Lots 1,000+, Bed Bath & Beyond 360+), the junior-anchor backfill cohort (TJX, Burlington, Ross, Five Below, Ulta, ALDI, Sprouts), the suite-level downtime + TI/LC + bridge-to-perm underwriting stack, and the dark-store property-tax-theory backdrop.
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Single-Tenant Triple Net Lease: Credit, Cap Rate Decomposition, and the 2026 Net Lease Bid
The institutional underwriting framework for single-tenant triple net lease (STNL): the 5-component cap-rate build (risk-free rate + credit spread + illiquidity + reversion + sponsor premium), the Q1 2026 Boulder Group cap-rate stack by tenant credit (McDonald's GL 4.40%, CVS 6.80%, Dollar General 7.15%, Walgreens 8.10%), the S&P BBB credit ladder, NN vs NNN vs absolute net vs ground lease vocabulary, and 1031 demand-floor mechanics.
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