Vacancy is not created after completion. It is decided at the design stage. The moment a space's ceiling height, frontage, and circulation are fixed, so is the range of tenants who can occupy it. Post-completion vacancy is only the result; the cause is always in the drawings.
So we reverse the order. Before the drawings are finalized, we map the tenant mix first — which use on the ground floor lifts the value of the floors above, and what physical conditions that use demands: ceiling height, electrical capacity, exhaust, loading access. We have seen too many buildings with no exhaust duct where a café should go, not enough clearance where a restaurant should sit. Those buildings lose the ability to choose their tenants. Whoever fits, moves in.
But tenanting does not end at matching specifications. To us, a tenant is not a lessee but the first colleague of the space. We want to gather people who move small but move true — shops with conviction in their craft, shops that open intending to stay, people who mean to add something to the street. Small things, one by one, move people's hearts and turn their steps.
The power of one shop exceeds its rent. The first tenant sets the character of a street's pull. One good shop becomes the drop that draws people in, and that current calls the second shop, and the third. A ground floor filled with whatever came along says nothing to its street. Tenant curation is not a matter of taste but of strategy — who moves in decides what the asset looks like five years out.
The judgment is proven in the financing, too. A building with committed tenants is priced differently. The rent roll at completion feeds the appraisal; the appraisal changes the loan terms; stable leases hold up the exit price. A single pre-leasing commitment can change the cost of debt. Capital moves differently for a project whose vacancy risk is gone. Tenanting is not marketing — it is part of development, and perhaps part of finance.
A development that looks for tenants after completion, and a development that walks toward completion with its tenants. The two buildings may open on the same day, but they will live different lives. We choose the latter — because we want to build streets, not buildings.