US open-air shopping center vacancies drop to historically low levels, defying forecasts of a retail apocalypse caused by e-commerce, which has ~16% of US sales
Availability of outdoor shopping centre space is at its lowest in nearly two decades — Vacancies at open-air shopping centres …
Context & Ripple Effects
Earlier coverage documented retailers adapting stores to meet e-commerce expectations, including those that matched online shopping’s convenience and speed. Later data showed e-commerce’s share of US retail had moved back toward its pre-pandemic level as store sales recovered.
The current scarcity of open-air retail space is a concrete counterpoint to the premise that online growth would broadly empty physical retail. It also follows coverage of stores being repurposed as online fulfillment centers when foot traffic was weaker.
First-order effects
- Owners of US open-air shopping centers face materially tighter available space, while retailers seeking new locations have fewer immediate options.
- The result directly challenges a blanket “retail apocalypse” narrative: physical locations remain contested even with e-commerce representing roughly 16% of US sales.
Second-order effects
- Retailers must place greater value on store formats that complement digital shopping, rather than treating physical and online channels as substitutes.
- Limited vacant space can make converting stores to fulfillment uses less straightforward where retailers and other tenants are competing for the same open-air locations.
Third-order effects
- If low vacancies persist, the retail property market may be shaped less by wholesale store contraction and more by which formats can sustain demand across physical and digital channels.
- The broader implication is not that e-commerce stops growing, but that its growth need not translate one-for-one into declining demand for all retail real estate.
The trend: US retail is moving toward an omnichannel equilibrium in which resilient physical formats coexist with a meaningful but not all-displacing e-commerce share.