Day 11: First Day at Ramco-Gershenson, Inc.

Today was the first day working at Ramco-Gershenson, Inc. with my aunt. The hours were a bit different than usual and a bit longer. We got in at 8:30 a.m. and left at 5:30 p.m. A quick run down of what this company does is develop, manage, and lease shopping centers and the stores in them throughout the country. It started off by meeting all of the people that I was going to be working with and going to meetings with for today and tomorrow. We arrived, went up to her office, got the documents needed for the first meeting at 9:00 a.m. and grabbed a note pad and pen to take notes with. The first meeting was to talk about the new development in Lakeland, Florida called lakeland Park Center. We were discussing how well phase one(section one) of the shopping center was doing and the future of phase two and three. In-between the first meeting and the second meeting, which occurred about two hours later, we were trying to get companies within the shopping center to change their contracts a little bit to get more stores and new stores into the shopping center. For example, we were trying to get a couple of small stores out of the shopping center to add the space onto the main building, which we are trying to sell to Dicks Sporting Goods. At about 11:00 a.m. we headed to our second meeting. The second meeting that we went to was discussing the Target cooperation in Fox River in Wisconsin. Ramco wanted to add ten acres of land to the shopping center, to better it, but Target was a bit leery on giving their consent because it could hurt their business. This meeting ended at noon, then we left, ate lunch, and got back at 1:00 p.m. The rest of the day was spent working on getting different stores into different shopping centers. The issue with this is that the stores that Ramco wants to get rid of or relocate in the shopping center either want to be payed money based on how much they think it is worth or want a rent reduction for their future location. Ramco is obviously trying to rearrange stores so they fit like a puzzle in the end and work out perfectly, but to make these changes it comes with a price and the negotiation process is not something easy on either end. By working here, I am able to see multiple different shopping centers, with different types of restaurants and shops. By understanding which restaurants were successful and which were not successful, I was able to come to conclusions on where the best and worst places to put a restaurant are inside of a shopping center. I found out that a couple of places where you do not want to put a restaurant inside of a shopping center is next to a grocery store and next to a fitness center. This is because people who go to a grocery store or a fitness center usually go there for one reason and one reason only. They don't plan on walking around and they won't come to your restaurant. One place that I found that is good to put a restaurant near is near some form of a clothing store. This is because people who go clothes shopping are doing exactly that...shopping. They don't have anything that they want specifically in mind, so they are more likely to make another stop before or after they go shopping.

Plans for a Shopping Center in Progress

Development Meeting of a Shopping Center in Progress