Ignore The Macro: Some Districts Are Actually Well-Positioned To Rebound
You’ve undoubtedly seen the bar graphs showing how the amount of retail square footage per capita in the U.S. dwarfs that of other advanced economies, along with the conclusion that we are “over-retailed” as a nation, especially now with the devastation wrought by e-commerce and COVID-19. Yet while this may well be true in the macro, the reality is that retail happens–or does not happen–in the micro. So while vacancy levels in Downtown/Main Street and other districts are likely to be elevated in the near term, and while landlords deserve some flexibility in trying to fill their empty spaces, municipalities might not want to open the floodgates to alternative non-retail uses on their prime retail corridors just yet: we do not know how all of this is going to shake out, and in any event, some districts–depending on their specifics–are actually well-positioned not just to rebound but to emerge even stronger in the long-term.