ICSC Las Vegas 2026: Looking Back & Looking Ahead
For most of us in retail real estate, ICSC Las Vegas is measured in numbers: how many meetings, how many deals, how many prospects, how many business cards, how many steps. For years, I measured the conference that way too.
But this year was different.
Looking Back: Reflections on My Journey
Partly because I had the honor of receiving ICSC’s Trustee’s Distinguished Service Award — which gave me an opportunity to look back on a career spanning more than three decades.
As I thought about the award, a childhood memory surfaced. Growing up in Queens, my mother and I used to pretend we were Lewis & Clark on our daily walk to elementary school. We weren't crossing rivers or climbing mountains — we were navigating traffic, apartment buildings, and the occasional puddle — but in our minds, it was a grand adventure.
That memory found its way into my acceptance speech. Looking back, I realized that my career has been an adventure as well. Opportunities I never expected. Businesses started and businesses closed. Lifelong friendships. Messy transitions that seemed overwhelming at the time but, with the benefit of hindsight, became part of the journey.
Receiving the award and reconnecting with so many friends and colleagues in Las Vegas left me with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for ICSC and the extraordinary ICSC community that has accompanied me every step of the way on my adventure.
Recalibrating: Trading Quantity for Quality
With that backdrop, I approached the convention differently this year. Instead of filling every available time slot with back-to-back meetings, I left room for chance conversations. I spent time walking the convention floor with friends and colleagues, which often led to meeting their friends and colleagues. I chose small dinners, breakfasts, and drinks over crowded events. I listened more, observed more, and gave myself permission to slow down.
And somewhere between the award ceremony, countless conversations, a few breakfasts, a handful of dinners, and a surprisingly fun photo shoot on the convention floor, I realized something unexpected: I was having fun. Not because I wasn’t working. Quite the opposite. But because I had stopped treating every minute as a transaction and started treating the conference as an opportunity to learn, reconnect, and enjoy the experience.
Looking Forward
Of course, while it’s well and good to have fun, ICSC Las Vegas represents a serious investment of time and resources. The returns are serious as well, including stronger relationships, new business opportunities, and firsthand insight into market conditions that extend well beyond the microcosm of our daily lives back home.
What the Market Is Actually Telling Us
The mood in Las Vegas was remarkably upbeat. Beneath that positive energy were a few themes that I think are worth paying attention to. The fundamentals have been stress tested, and they held. Retail real estate spent years absorbing pressure — store closures, repositioning, weaker tenants exiting, owners being forced into operational discipline they might not have chosen voluntarily. What’s left is structurally sounder. Capital is noticing.
Higher cap rates and interest rates are being underwritten, not wished away. That’s a meaningful maturity shift. When a market stops waiting for conditions to return to a prior normal and starts pricing reality, deals get done. That’s what I saw.
Leasing velocity is the new proof point. In this environment, the ability to move a deal from LOI to executed lease quickly and cleanly is a genuine competitive advantage — for owners, for tenants, and frankly for the professionals advising them. Slow, contentious leasing processes aren’t just frustrating; they’re destroying value in a market where speed matters.
That last point is where I spend most of my time. The conversations I had in Las Vegas reinforced something I believe deeply: the leasing process itself is underestimated as a lever. Most of the friction, delay, and cost that plague deals isn’t market driven; it’s structural, and it’s fixable
What This Means for the Months Ahead
Now, it’s all in the follow up. The relationships, ideas, and opportunities generated over those three days in Las Vegas will play out over the coming months. The follow up is where the conference actually happens.
As you’re working through your own pipeline from Las Vegas, I’d push you to ask one question about each opportunity: Is your process designed to get the deal closed, or is it the process you've always used? I believe that question is the key to achieving best-in-class leasing results.
I’ll be exploring these ideas in more depth in the months ahead, and I’d welcome the opportunity to compare notes with others who are asking the same question.