Daphne Howland discusses a Wall Street Journal article by Peter Grant on declining compensation for mall owners due to a correction to the over-built retail environment and a result of the shift to e-commerce.
The Great Recession helped accelerate a natural correction, experts say. Last year, retail analyst Jan Kniffen, CEO of J. Rogers Kniffen Worldwide Enterprises, said that while America at the time had about 1,100 enclosed malls, that number should be around 700 — meaning that roughly a third are destined to close.
Those remaining will likely be robust, according to Nick Egelanian, president of retail development consultants SiteWorks International. “In a strange twist, however, the smaller number of malls that remain operating when the dust settles will become virtually indestructible by offering only best-in-class higher end merchandise in exclusive collections. We already know who the winners will be, and the vast majority are owned and operated by four REITs: Simon, Westfield, Macerich and GGP.”
Incremental mall retrofits and sprawl repair can be the key to which malls succed.