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Property Art. 02 Retail Leases

Percentage rent done right. Every center, every tenant.

Retail leases live or die in the breakpoints, the gross-sales definitions, the co-tenancy triggers, and the exclusivity carve-outs. One miscalculation costs thousands across a 10-year term.

LeasePilot encodes your retail forms with the conditional logic that already lives in your team's head, and applies it to every draft.

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Sound familiar?

  1. 01

    Natural vs. artificial breakpoints, gross-sales definitions, partial-year proration

  2. 02

    Opening vs. operating co-tenancy thresholds, remedy tiers, cure periods

  3. 03

    Exclusivity drafted too broadly blocks tenants for decades; too narrow gives nothing

  4. 04

    CAM caps, controllable vs. total, administrative fees, gross-up provisions

The Reality

Every retail provision has three ways to get it wrong.

Anchor or inline. National credit or local operator. Food use or soft goods. Florida or California. Each combination changes the percentage-rent breakpoint, the co-tenancy remedy, the exclusivity carve-outs, the CAM methodology.

Most of those distinctions live in someone's head. The moment a draft skips one, the deal pays the bill at audit time.

  1. 01

    Percentage rent complexity

    Natural vs. artificial breakpoints, gross-sales definitions, exclusions, audit rights. The breakpoint calculation alone is one of the most common spreadsheet errors in CRE.

  2. 02

    Co-tenancy pitfalls

    Opening co-tenancy, operating co-tenancy, remedies upon violation. Miss one condition and your tenant has unexpected leverage.

  3. 03

    Exclusivity landmines

    Overly broad exclusivity blocks desirable tenants for decades. Too narrow, and you've given away nothing.

  4. 04

    CAM reconciliation

    Caps, floors, controllable vs. uncontrollable, administrative fees. Variations multiply with every tenant.

How LeasePilot Encodes

You describe the deal. The platform writes the retail lease.

Your retail forms encoded with conditional logic that knows the difference between an anchor and an inline tenant, a national credit tenant and a local operator, a food-use tenant and a soft goods retailer.

You describe the deal. The system produces a complete draft with the right clauses for the specific situation.

You describe the deal

Center
Riverside Plaza
Tenant
Fresh Market Co
Suite
B-140
GLA
8,200 SF
Term
7 years
Use
Specialty grocery

LeasePilot resolves

Retail Lease · Fresh Market Co, Suite B-140

  1. 01Natural breakpoint at $54.15/SF
  2. 02Opening co-tenancy (anchor required)
  3. 03Food-use exclusivity with carve-outs
  4. 04CAM with controllable expense cap
  5. 05State-specific sales-tax provisions (FL)
What gets encoded

Four areas where retail leases punish ambiguity

  1. § 02.A

    Percentage Rent

    Natural vs. artificial breakpoints, gross-sales definitions, audit rights, partial-year proration.

    • Natural vs. artificial breakpoints
    • Gross-sales definitions and exclusions
    • Reporting requirements and audit rights
    • Proration for partial years
  2. § 02.B

    Co-Tenancy

    Opening, operating, remedy tiers, cure periods. Provisions that quietly determine who has leverage at year five.

    • Opening co-tenancy conditions
    • Operating co-tenancy thresholds
    • Remedy tiers (rent reduction, termination)
    • Cure periods and notice requirements
  3. § 02.C

    Exclusivity

    Use definitions, carve-outs, remedy limitations, assignment restrictions.

    • Primary use definitions
    • Carve-outs for existing tenants
    • Remedy limitations
    • Assignment and sublease restrictions
  4. § 02.D

    CAM & Operating Expenses

    Caps, gross-up, capital exclusions, administrative fees. Methodology applied the same way every time.

    • Controllable expense caps
    • Administrative fee structures
    • Gross-up provisions
    • Capital expenditure exclusions

These are illustrative. Your platform is custom-built around your specific lease forms and deal logic.

Why This Matters

A template won't catch the breakpoint math. The platform will.

Word + Excel

Manual assembly

Build the breakpoint in a spreadsheet. Copy it into Word. Hope nothing got pasted from a version that pre-dated last year's exclusivity rewrite.

AI tools

Approximate output

An LLM can draft co-tenancy that sounds clean. It can't reliably distinguish opening from operating thresholds, or know that this anchor's lease has a kick-out at year three.

LeasePilot

Encoded judgment

Your retail forms, your conditional rules, your breakpoint logic, encoded and executable. Same deal parameters, same document, every time.

Real Outcomes
  1. § 01 · Time saved

    0+ hr

    Per lease, recovered from breakpoint calculations and clause hunting.

  2. § 02 · Errors

    0

    Percentage-rent breakpoints, CAM reconciliation, pro-rata shares, all computed.

  3. § 03 · Speed

    0 min

    Complete retail lease draft with the right provisions for the specific deal.

EDENS

“My only regret is that we didn't start using LeasePilot earlier!”

Jon B.

Vice President, Legal, EDENS

Keep Reading
  1. 01 · Free ToolPercentage Rent CalculatorCalculate breakpoints and compare natural vs. artificial structures.
  2. 02 · Case StudyEDENSHow a national shopping-center owner cut drafting time by 80% across 100+ properties.
  3. 03 · SolutionAmendments & Ancillary DocumentsEstoppels, SNDAs, and amendments that pull from your retail leases.

See your retail leases drafted in your platform.

Send us a template ahead of time. We will demo with your actual forms, your breakpoint logic, and a deal that looks like one your team would draft tomorrow.

Schedule a Demo