retail center

[Mike Bell]

I have a retail center Mini Mall.  The center is full, with the exception of one 1850 sq ft space.  I was approached yesterday about the space.  He wants to open a T-Mobile ceel phone store.  I do have another cell phone company in my strip mall.  I checked the lease and there is no exclusive.  What are your thoughts on putting another cell phon business (competitor) in the same center.  My feeling it may help.  The guy tells me, he would rent a building 100 yards away just down the road. So he would be a close competitor either way.  Anybody have any thoughts on this.

[John Mitchell]

@Mike Bell. @joelowens gives some great advice.  I'd like to add to his and give a slightly different view.  We look at cell phone stores a bit differently than say another category of retail.  If you put a jimmy johns directly on top of a subway they are direct competitors.  With the cell phone operators they usually represent one brand say verizon and can't sell t mobile.  While they are in the same business they are not selling the exact same products, there are more variables and once you're on a plan it's hard to switch.  In our retail portfolio we often times have different cell operators in a center where we wouldn't put two sub shops on top of each other even if we didn't have an exclusive.  Happy to discuss further with you.  Please feel free to pm me.