Landlords and tenants always have had to work together, but during the pandemic, the partnership strengthened as both parties had to overcome common obstacles. They’re now better at sharing data with each other, sharing risks and sharing frequent business updates, executives said at ICSC’s RECon Digital.

“There’s collaboration going on at the shopping center level that we haven’t seen in quite a while,” said Creative Compass Consulting Inc. founder Kate Knuth. “Back in the day, we managed to the lease and we made sure the landlord was keeping up their side of the agreement and the tenant was keeping up their side.”

Knuth added: “Collaboration has become an absolute necessity. It’s started to shift the entire perception of what it means to be a landlord and what it means to be a tenant. We’re not being so legalistic and dogmatic about how we help one another. We learned to help and get involved not just when the lease required.”

Tenants deemed nonessential by the government had to coordinate constantly with landlords as restrictions evolved, said Five Below vice president of real estate Zach Minteer. “We had to have a lot of heart-to-heart discussions. It helped strengthen the relationship.”

Setting up curbside delivery and outdoor dining infrastructure also forged stronger bonds, said Linear Retail Properties vice president of asset management Lauren Rogers. “To help tenants, we needed to understand what the problems were,” she said. “The pandemic has lasted over a year, and problems could not be solved overnight, so everybody on the landlord and tenant side had to be really patient with each other and have open communications. Restrictions were constantly being updated and lifted. Everybody needed time to understand how their operations would be affected.”

Registered attendees of RECon Digital can watch recordings of panels here.