THE RETAIL SECTOR was already steeped in transformational shakeout prior to the pandemic, rightsizing to how shopping is done in an increasingly digital economy. In what has already been a decade-long process, most analysts thought it would be a decade more before we started to see a turnaround. Of course, the pandemic has updated those timelines dramatically. SVN® Retail Product Chair Ryan Imbrie, CCIM notes that the retail sector “landed on the unfavorable side of COVID-19’s lopsided impact on commercial real estate.” While industrial properties benefited from the surge in online spending, Imbrie says the pandemic advanced the retail sector’s “long slide” with mounting store closings and rising vacancy.
