New WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathrani rescued a dying New Jersey mall. Can he do the same for the coworking company?
Retail real estate veteran Sandeep Mathrani just accepted the top job at a company that could be the toughest fixer-upper challenge ever: WeWork.
His time at Vornado may explain his decision to tackle the WeWork challenge. Although Mathrani was in charge of retail at Vornado, the key focus at Vornado while he was there was office space, as Vornado executives tried to figure out how the internet would impact demand for its office properties in New York and other major cities.Despite being located in affluent Northern New Jersey, in one of the richest zip codes for retail sales in the country, Bergen Mall was struggling.
When the deal was announced in 2005, putting a supermarket in an enclosed suburban mall was still considered a radical idea. Bergen Mall was primarily an outlet mall, and critics questioned whether discount shoppers would embrace Whole Foods. At General Growth, he responded to the changing mall landscape by bringing in more food and entertainment tenants, converting department stores into big-box retailers such as Dick’s Sporting Goods, and recruiting new direct-to-consumer brands.
Mathrani as a result didn’t get as much credit as he might have otherwise for the Bergen Town Center transformation.It is likely Mathrani will look at the challenges facing WeWork as similar to those facing malls. Mall owners have been talking for years about the need to create “live, work, play” environments to respond to the new reality that no one needs to go to the mall anymore because they can shop from home.
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