Full-Service Tenant Representation for Retail, Restaurant & Franchise Brands

In tenant representation, the broker works exclusively for the tenant, advocating for the lowest rent, best lease terms, and most favorable concessions. In landlord representation, the broker works for the property owner, aiming to fill vacancies at the highest possible rent. When one firm represents both sides, conflicts of interest can arise. Tenant-only firms like The Retail Strategy eliminate that conflict entirely by never representing landlords.

Franchise brands should look for a firm with national reach, experience in their specific vertical, a data-driven site selection process, and the ability to scale across multiple markets simultaneously. Long-term partnership matters — the best firms act as an extension of the brand’s team, not as a transactional broker on a single deal. Brands should also ask whether the firm represents landlords, as dual representation creates inherent conflicts of interest.

Timelines vary by market and deal complexity, but a typical retail lease transaction takes 3 to 6 months from initial site identification through lease execution. Factors that affect timing include market availability, landlord responsiveness, permitting requirements, and the complexity of lease negotiations. For franchise brands opening multiple locations simultaneously, TRS manages parallel searches across markets to accelerate the overall expansion timeline.

A dedicated real estate manager acts as an extension of the client’s corporate team, handling day-to-day real estate operations including site tours, letter of intent preparation, lease negotiation coordination, and ongoing reporting. At The Retail Strategy, each client is assigned a dedicated manager who oversees the entire real estate process — from initial market analysis through lease execution. This model ensures consistent communication and eliminates the need for brands to hire an internal real estate team.

The Retail Strategy uses REMI, a proprietary mapping platform built on Esri’s Experience Builder, to provide clients with interactive market visualization. REMI allows brands to view demographic data, customer concentrations, competitor locations, and market build-out plans in a single interface. The platform supports franchise territory mapping, white space analysis, and trade area evaluation — giving clients the data they need to make confident site selection decisions.

Brands typically hire a retail real estate partner when they are preparing to expand into new markets, finding that their internal team can’t keep up with the pace of growth, or looking to consolidate their real estate functions — site selection, lease negotiation, and portfolio management — under one outsourced team rather than managing multiple vendors or building an in-house department from scratch.