With 14 years of retail experience, AvalonBay’s Katie Bucklew talks with MHN’s Laura Calugar about creating the right synergies in mixed-use communities.
“When I think about mixed-use, I use the word balance,” Katie Bucklew said in the November episode of the Mission Success: Women in Multifamily podcast series.
As vice president of mixed-use and development with AvalonBay Communities Bucklew specializes in identifying, structuring and closing new mixed-use opportunities. She started in the retail real estate industry right out of college, spending the first 14 years of her career understanding this asset class. So, transitioning to her current role in 2019 was a natural progression in her career path.
Today, about a third of Avalon’s portfolio has a commercial component, with these non-residential spaces totaling 1 million square feet—nine grocery stores and numerous smaller retailers across 12 markets nationwide.
In this podcast with Multi-Housing News Senior Editor Laura Calugar, Bucklew talks about what it takes to strike the right balance between what residents want and the commercial tenants’ success. Here are some of the topics discussed:
- The elements that define a successful mixed-use development (3:23)
- Why ground-floor retail should never be an afterthought (4:20)
- When to begin conversations with a prospective retail tenant (5:58)
- Consulting with residents/those who live in the neighborhood (7:56)
- Retail and residents’ need for privacy (9:36)
- Ground-floor commercial space in urban core areas (12:39)
- How to address a classic mixed-use challenge: parking (14:52)
- The benefits that retail tenants gain from having a built-in consumer base (17:20)
- Creating a lasting sense of “place” (18:27)
- Is there really a premium for apartments in mixed-used projects? (20:35)
- The evolution of mixed-use development (22:03)
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