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Despite those signs, shopping malls apparently have no vacancies
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No vacancy, all full...sorry!
You may be wondering how did I reach the conclusion offered in the headline of this article.
A family member of mine is interested in opening a business in a local mall. He asked for my assistance. I telephoned the rental agent who serves this as well as two other malls. After leaving three telephone messages over a two-week period, I finally received a return phone call.
While the representative was friendly, I was stunned that she could not tell me the rental fee. "You need to complete an application first before we can tell you what the lease rates are." Stunned, I asked if she was serious as, some how, some way, I thought that my calendar was wrong and that it was possibly April Fools Day. She reaffirmed that her statement was correct, and admitted that even she didn't know the rental rates. And she is the "leasing representative."
Okay, I get it. They want to do a risk assessment analysis before they quote rates. Still, why did it take two weeks to receive a response to my inquiry? You should know that there are a plethora of empty storefronts in this mall.
I agreed to have her email me the application, and sure enough, 8 days later (yes, I said 8 days later!) the email arrived with the application.
Thinking that this was an isolated incident, I had my two members of my market intelligence team contact 46 malls/shopping centers nationwide. On average, it took 6 days to get a response!
"The national mall vacancy rate, reported separately, was 7.9 percent in the first quarter, the highest level since Reis began tracking the statistic in early 2000?
So when you read a statement like the one above, beware. The simple truth is that in many of these empty storefronts, the last tenant is still paying the rental, especially if they are a national brand, and, leasing agents are not exactly being aggressive in their sales role.
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