Retail is strong and the brands of which are adopting and embracing change will continue to thrive. Retail is evolving every day and has changed significantly over the last 30 years. Don’t expect it to stop now! Shopping centers will morph and evolve faster over the next 5 to 10 years than ever before. The way consumers shop has changed the retail landscape and with in turn has as changed the physical infrastructure and footprint of shopping centers. The incorporation of the different use categories blending together has created many colorful destinations, ones of which can be seen today to include retail, medical, multi-family, self-storage, religious and educational uses.

Times have changed! The mall that consumers have been accustomed to in the past has almost become functionally obsolete, and the shopping center has evolved significantly over recent years and will continue to morph moving into the future. The adage that bigger is better is no longer the case within the retail landscape. The retailers that used to be large big box formats (50,000+ SF) have either gone out of business or have notably reduced their operating square footage. This comes at a time where consumers are engaging more and more online and where omni-channel is most important to retain consumers attention to their retail brands. With the incorporation of pickup and delivery, physical retail stores have completely changed the layout of their infrastructure including specific areas in the back of the house to accommodate the logistics associated with shipping from the store and the front of house to accommodate ease of pickup by consumers. One thing is for sure, the retailers that embrace change and evolve will live on. The ones that elect not to change in their old ways will eventually go extinct.

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