Making Progress

COVER UPDATE

Making Progress

Greg Sembler is repositioning The Sembler Company during a tough time for the retail industry.

The year 2008 ended as scheduled for The Sembler Company, a well-established, nationally-known, successful retail developer.

Sembler has developed more than 100 major shopping center projects and more than 140 freestanding retail stores since its inception in 1962.

In the past three months, Sembler has finished Crosscreek Village in St. Cloud, the Commercial Boulevard Shoppes in Lauderhill, The Prado in Atlanta and Deerfield Place in Alpharetta, Ga. It began the Brooks Village retail center in Naples.

Looking at 2009, Greg Sembler, the chief executive officer, is confident the adjustments his company has made will pay off in the tougher retail market.

They will need to as 2009 will be "a year of consolidation, less development and implementing new business strategies geared to the new economy," says Sembler, son of founder Mel Sembler, former U.S. Ambassador to Italy and chairman of the board.

Sembler has been steering the company closer to what it does best: neighborhood shopping centers.

It still has a number of larger developments in the Southeast it continues working on, plus a housing development, Duval Park, in St. Petersburg, but Sembler knows the company has been hit by the decline in residential real estate. So the CEO wants to reduce its exposure and capitalize on its strengths.

Sembler stepped up from vice chairman and became CEO one year ago. But for a very brief stint in residential, 99% of the company is retail. Getting back to being solely a neighborhood shopping center builder won't be entirely possible. Sembler is still involved in other projects.

For example, in Okatie, S.C., near Hilton Head, it is building a mall-size 1.2 million square foot regional shopping center. It is also working on an 800,000-square-foot center in Dawsonville, Ga. and will continue to finish up projects it started in the last couple of years in Atlanta, North Georgia and Florida.

Many of these are regional shopping centers with big-box tenants, such as Kohl's, Target and Best Buy.

Sembler closed its office in Sterling, Va., which had two employees.

It has 133 employees, down from 162. Last year it also sold BayWalk for a little more than break even to entrepreneur Fred Bullard.

The main challenge for Sembler in 2009 will be long-range planning. A lot of retailers are pushing back plans until 2010 or 2011. Developers need a couple of years to get things into the building pipeline.

It has done a lot of work for Publix and Walgreens and will explore more work with those successful retailers. It is also talking to a bank and a fast-food restaurant chain about developing facilities for them.

One continuing bright spot for Sembler has been Puerto Rico. Sembler has three Walgreens under construction there and seven to eight in the pipeline.

- Dave Szymanski