During the 1990s, a phenomenon began unfolding in some metropolitan areas of the nation. The shopping center industry and the debt and equity capital markets slowly began to redirect their attention towards urban markets and neighborhoods populated by multi-cultural communities. Led by the efforts of pioneering players such as The Retail Initiative, Inc., retailers, government agencies, investors and lenders were encouraged to explore the potential of a market niche that had never experienced the levels of market saturation seen in suburban communities.

This entrepreneurial effort received intellectual support from numerous studies documenting the undeserved and under-stored potential of urban and ethnic markets, including studies published by the Initiative for a Competitive Inner-City and the International Council of Shopping Centers. These studies concluded that:

• The urban core markets offered high population concentrations with limited retail options
• $85 billion in annual inner-city retail spending power
• Enormous buying power – as much as 2 to 6 times that of less dense, non-inner-city areas
• As a group, the largest U.S. cities grew faster in the 1990s than in the 1980s

(Sources: The Initiative for a Competitive Inner-City, 1998; International Council of Shopping Centers, 2004)

However, the emerging revitalization of the urban core encompasses more than just historically overlooked inner-city neighborhoods. It includes central business districts of major municipalities and commercial corridors of smaller cities within the orbit of a resurging metropolis. Our principals have embraced the concept of diversity – in all its forms – embodied in all of these communities. And it is within these markets that we will project the unique capabilities of DLC UrbanCore.