AREA Real Estate Advisors

After far exceeding Kansas City’s expectations, Todd Schulte and Cory Dannehl, owners of Brookside’s Earl’s Premier, are at it again! The duo has announced their newest venture, Bacaro Primo, a casual Italian restaurant and bar, will open not far from Earl’s. Currently under renovations, Bacaro will occupy the former Café Europa space (323 E 55th Street, Kansas City, MO) in Crestwood Shops, with a spring 2023 opening.

Much like Earl’s, Bacaro Primo will be casual and smaller in size, serving up mouthwatering dishes.  With a focus on deli meats and centered around a salami bar, Bacaro will feature a fire engine hand slicer creating sliced-to-order charcuterie boards. The menu will also include wood-fired pizzas and fresh pastas with an emphasis on imported products not easily found anywhere else in the city. “Quality is the name of the game first and foremost,” says Schulte.  Along with the high-quality food menu, the restaurant will feature a curated wine, beer, and cocktail menu, with a special program for negronis and amaros.

Schulte and Dannehl were first attraced to Crestwood Shops after seeing first hand how a small restaurant on a good block, run with top talent, and serving great food can build a loyal following. Bacaro Primo becomes the first new tenant in the historical shopping center after 15 years.  The restaurant is named after the famous ancient Venetian wine taverns, known as “bacari.” These little wine bars are used as a place to mingle over plates of food and a glass or two of wine. They will be open for lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday. We can’t wait for you to assaporare! Mangia!

AREA’s Rachel West represented Crestwood Shops in the transaction. To read more about the highly anticipated restaurant, click here for the Kansas City magazine article and here for the Kansas City Star article.

To see the Crestwood Shops marketing package, download it here.

AREA Real Estate Advisors has hired three new team members to support its property management division’s dynamic growth.  AREA has experienced a 99 percent growth in its management portfolio, managing more than 2 million sq ft in 2021 to more than 4.2 million sq ft in 2022.

In early November, AREA’s property management group began overseeing a new client’s portfolio of industrial flex space, including 20 buildings and 760,000 square feet. Along with these new assignments, AREA has welcomed three new employees: Property Manager Mike Long, Property Manager Martin Whipple, and Property Administrator Anna Waldron. Whipple and Waldron both join AREA from Axiom Property Management. Long was previously at Curry Real Estate Services.

Long has more than 25 years of property management experience and most recently oversaw the multi-family management department at Curry. He is a past president of Kansas City IREM, holds IREM CPM designation, and is currently on the IREM National Membership and Credentialing Committee. 

Whipple has more than 22 years of industry experience, which includes time at Hines and Colliers.  

Waldron recently started her career in commercial real estate. She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Houston and her master’s degree in Piano Performance at UMKC. 

 “AREA Real Estate Advisors is a special place where highly committed, thoughtful people can do their best work,” said Tim Schaffer, AREA Real Estate Advisors founder and president. “Doug exemplifies that spirit, and I know Mike, Martin, and Anna are ready to pick up the torch and continue growing AREA’s property management group.”

The Kansas City Business Journal interviewed Tim Schaffer and Doug Grossenbacher on the firm’s property management expansion. To read the full article, click here.

AREA Real Estate Advisors’ vice president and director of the Industrial division, Brent Peterson, recently joined Bob Fraser and Ben Fraser of Aspen Funds on their podcast Invest like a Billionaire. This highly informative episode highlights commercial industrial opportunities and where to find them.

Some key highlights from the episode are:

– Vacancy rates across all real estate sectors are still low, however within the industrial sector the overall vacancy rate across the United States is below 5%. There are some markets that are seeing vacancy rates as low as 0.2%. With these low vacancy rates, we have evidence showing new deliveries and new construction showing that these properties are truly functioning operations.

– Industrial has been in a bull market for the past decade due to e-commerce. The growth spike in e-commerce was accelerated due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however we are still continuing to see growth. While the need continues to increase, e-commerce still may be growing at a slower rate as it has taken over more market share.

– There are three major categories of industrial real estate: distribution centers (think 500,000 SF Amazon warehouse), manufacturing facilities (think 300,000 SF – 500,000 SF Allstate facility), and flex space. Distribution centers are the wrap it in, wrap it out type spaces that try to get as much product through as they can. These can be typically found near intermodal hubs. Manufacturing facilities typically have heavier power, more lighting, more car parks in addition to the semi truck traffic that is coming in and out. Flex space can be single or multi-tenant, typically with 50% or more of office space similar to an HVAC contractor, car shop, etc.

– The market is experiencing some serious supply chain troubles due to a couple of things. First, the lag time in the length it takes to get the huge containers from other parts of the world to the United States. We have huge ships with thousands of containers on them showing up to the sea ports, but not enough people to them off of those ships and on to the trains quickly enough.  The other issue is that the demand for goods is much higher, as we are spending more money here in the United States. Because of this, companies who were used to having ‘just in time’ inventory, are now being forced to store extra inventory and pay a little more to keep them on hand so they will be able to deliver the goods.

– The trend of globalization is turning into a trend of localization. We have spent the last 30 years manufacturing overseas as labor is cheaper, cost if living is lower, but over the next several years we will see a shift as over half of the population will be retired. Like China, the US could see this at some point, as population seems to have hit its peak and there won’t be enough workers for the amount of work to be done. This in turn, will push us to focus on quality of construction and quality of goods. This will cause companies to pay a premium for the quality, but they will be getting the best product at the best price.

– While the surge for industrial space is still in demand, at some point we will over build and we will not have a need for all of this space.

To listen to the full podcast, click here.

Disclaimer: the statistics since the recording of this podcast may have changed.