ICSC Las Vegas is always the week that sets the tone for the rest of the year in retail real estate, and 2026 was no exception. Kalibrate was on the ground all week, meeting with clients, prospects, and data partners across nearly 200 meetings, showcasing new platform capabilities, and capturing what’s driving location decisions for some of the industry’s most exciting brands.
This year, ICSC introduced PropTech, a new show-within-a-show dedicated to property technology providers. Kalibrate had a presence in the PropTech section alongside our primary booth, putting us squarely in front of attendees looking for the technology edge in their real estate strategies.
What we brought to Vegas
This year’s show was an opportunity to put our latest innovations directly in front of the people using them. We came to ICSC with several major launches and updates to the Kalibrate Location Intelligence (KLI) platform:
- Territory Optimizer: A tool designed to streamline franchise territory planning, removing the manual process of territory definition. Franchisors will find immediate value in how it simplifies a historically complex process.
- Portfolio Analyzer: A brand-new tool currently in proof of concept testing that surfaces insights proactively, so users spend less time clicking around and more time acting on what matters.
- Cross Shop Dashboards: A powerful new addition to our Competitive Insights module that shows users who else their visitors are shopping with, unlocking co-tenancy and marketing opportunities.
As Dustin Stancil, Kalibrate’s SVP of Location Intelligence and Strategy, put it: “Whether you’re looking at what’s a good adjacent retailer or who would be a great opportunity for a marketing campaign, that tool and that data is going to help you get to those insights faster.”
Hearing it from our clients
The best part of any ICSC is the conversations. We sat down with several clients throughout the week to hear how they’re using KLI and what’s resonating. Here’s what stood out:
The power of a one-stop platform
A consistent theme across nearly every conversation was consolidation: clients replacing a patchwork of tools with a single, configurable platform.
Becca Eiland, Development Partner at Hutton Development, summed it up: “We had a lot of different products that we were using to kind of piece together the story of the site. KLI has allowed us to consolidate those resources into a one-stop shop.” She also noted the platform’s ability to identify not just national tenants, but regional and local players: “They hone in on regional and local players that just aren’t even on our radar because we’re not that familiar with the territory.”
Living in the platform every day
Jackie Chamberlain, Director of Real Estate at Hand & Stone Massage and Facial Spa (669+ locations across 38 states and Canada), may have been the week’s most passionate KLI advocate: “I don’t know if I could do my job without Kalibrate. It’s open on my desktop all day, every day.” She highlighted the mobile app as a game-changer, especially on a show floor with no Wi-Fi: “Someone will ask me about a site and I can take my phone, go into Kalibrate, and it’ll just pop up and give me what I need.”
Jackie also spoke to the evolution of the platform: “It’s become even more intuitive as we moved to KLI. It’s faster, there’s more information, it’s easier to use. The AI, my best friend, helps me interpret data into real-world terms for franchisees.”
Data-driven expansion at scale
Mark Hughes, Director of Real Estate Analysis at Bojangles (881 locations and growing nationally), shared how KLI supports their ambitious expansion from their Southeast heartland into markets like Dallas, Las Vegas, Brooklyn, and Phoenix. “I use KLI from a DMA level down to a trade area level, identifying those high-value trade areas, and then finally down to the site level. Being able to look at traffic patterns and understand daypart patterns is key.”
Mark also gave a nod to the team behind the tech: “It’s not about the data. It’s about the people. The support team at Kalibrate is phenomenal. Everybody’s so willing to work with me… and what I love is how forward-thinking everybody is. I’ll think of something I’d love to have, and I find out it’s already on the roadmap.”
A unique use case: Empowering municipalities
Lacey Beasley, President of Retail Strategies, brought a perspective unlike any other at the show. Her firm works with roughly 350 municipalities across the country, using KLI’s Competitive Insights to recruit retailers to their communities. “We use KLI to determine foot traffic and patterns, how retailers are performing and where consumers are traveling. It goes beyond just basic demographics. We’re really looking at shopping patterns on that local level.”
Lacey emphasized why the partnership matters: “Kalibrate works with the best of class in every category. We want to provide the same information that the retailers Kalibrate works with to our municipalities.”
Smarter data, smarter models
We also caught up with Lyden Foust, CEO of Spatial.ai, one of our key data partners. He spoke to the intentionality behind how Kalibrate integrates third-party data like Spatial.ai’s Personaive segmentation and Polygraph affinities: “Kalibrate is really intentional about choosing what goes into their models versus just throwing the data at something and seeing what comes back. Especially in the age of AI, when you can click a button and get a model, this will be a model you can actually understand.”
What’s next on the roadmap
Dustin Stancil gave attendees a peek at what’s ahead: “We’re leaning into simplification of our product, making the tools we have today easier to use. Portfolio Analyzer is going to bring more insights to our clients rather than having to click around to find what’s impactful. The system can help tell them, and then they can drill down to what’s most important.”
The message was clear: more speed, more proactive insights, and continued investment in making KLI the most usable platform in the market.
Until next time
ICSC 2026 reinforced what we hear from our clients every day: location intelligence isn’t a nice-to-have anymore. It’s the foundation for confident, data-backed real estate decisions, whether you’re a franchisor managing 881 units, a developer pitching a new site, or a municipality competing for retail investment.
Thank you to everyone who stopped by, sat down for a meeting, or shared their story on camera. We’ll see you next year.
Missed seeing the team in person? Schedule time with us to see what’s new in the KLI platform.
