So the retailers, I think what they’re doing is they’re seeing through this and saying, hey, where do I find growth, not just next year, but years two, three, four and five. If there’s no new supply, I really have to take advantage of what opportunities I see today to set myself up for growth potential going forward to hit my own targets and so I think you continue to see that. And some lessons learned from past cycles that it’s really hard to ramp up a program to find new stores and to grow and to open them and then to shut it down and then try to reramp it again. You’re always kind of playing a game of catch-up and you tend to miss the better opportunities early. So I think for some of those well-capitalized retailers, they’ve sort of seen through that and said, let’s continue on our plan.
Let’s continue to source and find new opportunities, knowing that if we sign a lease say, midyear’23, we can be looking at a ’24, maybe in some cases, a little bit further out as that opening. And as you’ve seen these market cycles compressed in terms of cycle through the program of dipping and then recovering. It’s the time of recovery seems to be compressing much quicker. So by the time you get these stores open, the intent, hopefully, is that you’re if we do go through a bit of a dip that you’re on the backside of that and already you’re opening during a growth cycle again. So those are a lot of the conversations that we continue to see. On the small shop side, you’re seeing service-based tenants, restaurants, et cetera, continue to open and find opportunities.
There’s still some of that COVID inventory out there that had fully fixturize units that operators can go in and start to operate quickly. We will continue to watch that closely. Obviously, the discretionary side maybe the full-service restaurants and some entertainment see how that plays out in this coming year, if there’s any disruption in terms of the broader markets, but people are really kind of looking through it right now.
Operator: Our next question comes from Haendel St. Juste from Mizuho. Please go ahead.
Haendel St. Juste: Sorry about that. So, just wanted to follow-up, if I could, Ross, on the transactional market comments. You made things, obviously, a bit stalled out there. Retail volumes transactions were down 60%, I think, in the fourth quarter, and we’re still here with a pretty wide bid-ask spread out there. So I guess, I am curious what you’re seeing in terms of maybe cap rates for the quality of open air centers you’d like to own? And given your cost of capital, what’s your hurdle rate or maybe where would asset price need to be for you to get more active? Thanks.
Ross Cooper: Yes, it’s a good observation. And to your point, it is still somewhat wide in terms of the bid-ask spread. It’s a nuanced market. So every deal is a little bit unique. I would say, historically and in most cycles, it’s a pretty efficient market. But right now, it’s fairly inconsistent. So you are seeing select deals getting done but it really depends on having two motivated parties to do so. I would say that we’re in a position where we’re not forced to do anything. So when the market comes to us, we’re happy to continue to invest and to put our capital to work. On the acquisition side, and I would say the partnership buyout side that are pretty closely aligned, we’re seeing pricing where deals make sense to us, somewhere in that low six cap range.
