More Retailers Forced To Act Fast With Store Space in Short Supply, JLL Executive Says

Article originally posted on CoStar on May 22, 2024

Retailers seeking new spaces with U.S. vacancy rates low need to act fast when interested in a site or risk losing out to another renter, JLL’s head of retail services said.

The country’s overall vacancy rate of retail space is 4.1%, according to Chicago-based JLL, citing CoStar data. Combine that with a years-long slowdown in development and some retail spaces are hard to find, especially smaller sites, Naveen Jaggi, president of retail advisory services, North America, said in an interview at the ICSC industry convention this week.

“It’s a tight market,” said Jaggi, who is based in JLL’s Houston office. “If the rent was once nine, 10, 12 bucks a square foot and now it’s 22 bucks a square foot, retailers will either take that space” even at the higher amount or “lose that space in a shortage environment like this.”