As more Americans start going shopping again, brick-and-mortar store owners are recovering from the plague with unexpected strength, reporting some of their greatest figures in years and planning expansions.
According to real estate services company Cushman & Wakefield, asking rents for U.S. shopping malls in the second quarter were 16% higher than five years earlier, while U.S. retail vacancies dropped to 6.1%, the lowest level in at least 15 years.
According to a Morgan Stanley survey, more stores opened than shuttered in the United States last year for the first time since 1995. Some analysts predict that trend to continue this year even as recession fears increase.
The retail real estate market’s recovery is the result of a painful, decades-long adjustment that saw hundreds of retailers file for bankruptcy, many storefronts go unoccupied, and a decline in the desire for enclosed malls. After several years of overbuilding, the pace of new retail construction has dramatically reduced over the last ten years.
Instead of developing new homes, the majority of developers prefer to repair aging homes. When they do start new developments, they are generally more cautious and obtain leases from tenants first before breaking ground. Companies that began as online-only businesses, like Warby Parker Inc., are increasingly using real estate to draw clients and spur development. According to financial documents, the retailer of eyeglasses added nine new locations in the second quarter, increasing its total to 178 outlets.
Additionally, many consumers have discovered they prefer shopping in stores for goods like apparel and food, despite being compelled to buy more items online at the beginning of the pandemic. This is a reassuring indicator for the long-term viability of brick and mortar retail.
Oversupply still affects other real estate sectors. The epidemic and the rise of virtual work have made an already difficult situation in the office sector even worse. According to some real estate specialists, it will probably take years for supply to decrease to the level of office demand that existed after COVID-19.
As businesses who made it through the difficulties of internet shopping and the pandemic aspire to expand, retail real estate is now profiting from years of minimal construction after going through its own tough reinvention.According to Brian Kingston, managing partner at Brookfield Asset Management, “we’ll have fewer new stores opening in the U.S. than closures for the first time in almost five years.” And an estimated 23 million square feet of space will be needed for these net new 2,600 stores.
One of the largest mall owners, the real estate company, reported that expenditure at its 132 U.S. malls is 31% above prepandemic levels.
According to Brookfield, Simon Property Group, and Macerich Co., operators of high-end, Class A malls, occupancy rates have recovered from previous drops to more than 90%, while many middle-and lower-quality malls are still having trouble.
High inflation, quickly rising interest rates, and the possibility of a recession might reduce retail sales and increase vacancies in the next few months. However, executives and analysts noted that retail’s improving performance throughout the pandemic shows the sector is better equipped than it has been in years to weather impending storms.
According to Chad Cress, chief creative officer of DJM, a real estate investment, development, and management company based in California, “coming out of COVID, our foot traffic and sales across all of our locations have improved, even above pre-Covid levels.”
Long before Amazon.com, difficulties in the retail sector existed. According to Ronald Kamdem, chairman of U.S. retail development, since the 1970s, the rate of increase in retail building has been four to six times that of population growth in the U.S. Morgan Stanley conducts research on REITs and commercial real estate.
According to data provider MSCI Real Assets, there is now about 22 square feet of retail space per inhabitant in the United States. Morgan Stanley calculates an even higher per-capita square footage than France and the United Kingdom—and nearly eight times China’s rate—Morgan Stanley calculates an even higher value of 23, more than any other nation.
According to Nick Egelanian, founder and president of retail advisory firm SiteWorks, when Americans moved to the suburbs following World War II, downtown shopping districts dominated by small businesses and family-run department stores lost their way to regional malls and retail chains. Later, developers hurried to erect large, outdoor shopping malls featuring big-box retailers.
For the most part, up until the Great Financial Crisis, we just kept building, said Brandon Svec, national director of U.S. retail analytics for data company CoStar.
When the recession hit in 2008, e-commerce was only beginning to gain traction among middle-class consumers. According to Morgan Stanley, more than 850 stores declared bankruptcy in 2008 and 2009.
Additionally, retail construction fell. Since 2010, less than 150 million square feet of new retail space has been produced annually by developers, which is half the amount that was delivered in both 2008 and 2009.
Retailers had been struggling for years with the increased popularity of online shopping by the time the epidemic struck, pushing consumers to turn to the internet for everything from groceries to workouts. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, e-commerce, which made up 3.6% of all retail sales in the first quarter of 2008, would increase to almost 12% by the same period in 2020. Counting Houses
The Census Bureau reported that the percentage of online retail sales decreased after reaching a peak of 16.4% of total sales in the second quarter of 2020. 14.3% of retail sales were made online in the first quarter of this year, up from 12.5% before the epidemic, but at a more slow rate of growth that shows consumers still prefer to shop in-person.
This year, according to Mr. Kingston of Brookfield, “retail sales growth in physical brick and mortar stores is actually expanding faster than e-commerce.”
Retail executives and analysts agree that the epidemic prompted businesses to speed up the integration of their online and offline services. Customers can now pick up or return online purchases from more businesses. More parking spaces are being set aside for curbside pickup by shopping center owners.
Some internet retailers are turning to real estate to attract clients as the cost of online advertising has gone up.
Todd Snyder, a menswear designer who started his brand in 2011, claimed that after opening his first physical store in Manhattan in 2016, his online sales in the New York metro area tripled within the first year.
“It’s a fantastic approach to increase brand recognition. Additionally, Mr. Snyder, who has since launched five more businesses, stated that it was a terrific way to receive customer input.
Instead of creating new stores, many real estate executives are renovating historic ones to appeal to contemporary consumers. The 46-year-old shopping complex that real estate investment trust Brixmor Property Group Inc. bought in 2005 in the Mamaroneck, New York, suburb of New York City, has just undergone a $13 million refurbishment.
One recent afternoon, customers were wheeling trolleys out of North Shore Farms, a neighborhood supermarket in the retail complex that took the place of the previous grocery chain, A&P, which shut down in 2015 after declaring bankruptcy.
Jennifer Mercer, 52, claims she visits the store frequently to stock up on specialty items such as Greek feta cheese and olives, as well as fresh fruits and vegetables.
I enjoy selecting my own produce. I enjoy looking around, “Ms. Mercer added. “I get ideas when I visit stores like this. They had prepared things, so I thought, “Oh, I’ll cook that.”
There are still issues with retail real estate. Some important tenants, like Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., are under intense financial strain and have made broad closure announcements. Retail in office-dependent districts is still having trouble since fewer people are shopping there because of remote work.
And the United States is still too detailed. According to Mr. Kamdem of Morgan Stanley, approximately one-third of the 1,100 currently operating malls and more than 10% of the 115,000 shopping centers will probably fail in the upcoming years and should be dismantled.
Nevertheless, he continued, business is better prepared than it has been in decades for any economic unrest. Though not to the same extent as the 2008 financial crisis, retail bankruptcies increased throughout the epidemic.
Although there will be a headwind, Mr. Kamdem predicted that losses will not be as great.
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