Retail Centers See Modest Growth

U.S. malls and strip centers saw slight growth in the fourth quarter, but experts say the wobbly economy and recent disappointing holiday-shopping season point to a lackluster 2013 for retail landlords.
 
The average vacancy rate at malls in the quarter declined to 8.6%, down one-10th of a percentage point from the previous quarter, according to a new report from real-estate research firm Reis Inc. REIS +0.81% Mall vacancy has declined five quarters in a row since the industry hit a 12-year high of 9.4% in the third quarter of 2011, said Reis, which tracks the top 77 U.S. markets.



Weingarten Realty Investors

  

Rendering of a Petsmart store to be opened this year at the Six Forks Station center in Raleigh, N.C.

 

At strip centers, the rows of shops facing a common parking lot and often anchored by a grocery store, average vacancy declined to 10.7% in the fourth quarter from 10.8% in the third. That is just 0.4 percentage point from the highest vacancy rate in this category since Reis began tracking the figures: 11.1%, registered in the third quarter of 2011 and at year-end in 1990.
 

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