The integration of residential housing into Lifestyle Centers and Shopping Malls have become major redevelopment projects. A retail center's commercial viability under the new household norms of shopping and entertainment creates a greater emphasis on the center’s residential components, both hospitality and multifamily. Market Foresight has served national redevelopment and property management teams that required an expert residential professional and market advocate.

Liberty Center in Liberty Township, northern Cincinnati, was subject to many nearby household and employment changes over their ten years that were then scrutinized by a new institutional owner. The owner studied the Center's existing real estate uses including retail, office, residential and hospitality. The owner then sought to modify their Master Plan to accommodate a second hotel and more upscale multifamily.

Local leadership was hesitant to modify the Master Plan without a clear understanding of their market's housing supply and demand dynamics, including the existing pipeline of approved or pending construction projects, as well as household demographics and income metrics. Market Foresight joined other experts to support the owner’s application, bringing a data-driven market awareness of the depth of nearby upscale households and their lack of rental product. “These are professional, upscale renters driven by job mobility – households that your Township would value as neighbors whether as shorter-term renters or homeowners. In fact, these renters have the income to purchase 75% of the homes in your Township, truly a share of unserved renters by choice.”

Through a series of private briefings and public presentations, our housing market advocacy won support from civic leadership for the owner’s application. The regional horizon of older or obsolete retail centers, surrounded by good market fundamentals, has become a significant opportunity for promoting strategic market awareness and supporting creative community renewal.

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