In the Spotlight

During lease negotiations with an anchor or other national tenant, it is customary for the tenant to slap on a laundry list of prohibited or 'noxious' uses and to require the landlord to subject the shopping center to the restrictions contained therein. The landlord is generally agreeable to the prohibitions on the list, because the tenant is also bound by those restrictions and because the list generally contains uses which the landlord will not consider anyway ' such as industrial or manufacturing uses, mortuary and funeral homes, places of worship, carnivals or circuses, gun and pawn shops, and everyone's favorite throwback to the 1960's ' tattoo parlors and stores selling, distributing or displaying any drug paraphernalia primarily used in connection with the use or ingestion of illicit drugs. However, before the landlord concedes several other historically noxious uses, the owner of a modern-day lifestyle center or mixed-use center, particularly one still under development, should look carefully at these standard restrictions and consider softening the restrictions to allow certain types of uses which are finding their way into upscale and first-class shopping centers.