Monday Dec 28 2020
Matt Lampert at the Socionomics Institute asked what I would be watching as a socionomist in 2021.
My answer was commercial real estate. We have lived in North San Antonio for ten years. There are spaces in small retail strip centers that have been vacant that entire time. Now more small strip malls are being built. While front page article in the WSJ today says Pandemic Changes Seen as Lasting, I just drove by a new office complex going up, even as more decide to work from home!
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/after-christmas-your-mall-might-vanish-but-it-may-also-be-reborn-185017223.html
After a brutal year for most malls — capped off by a weak holiday shopping season thanks to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic — many that have struggled financially for years may finally vanish in 2021 as their tenants close up shop.
“Bankruptcies and store closings will accelerate again,” veteran retail executive Jan Rogers Kniffen said in a new missive to clients this week.
Of the roughly 1,100 malls left in America, Kniffen believes only 278 are viable in the post pandemic world where online shopping will reign even more supreme. These would be the best of the best malls — or “A” malls as experts call them — that are in densely populated areas and target higher income shoppers.
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