Another gloomy breaking news alert on malls. This time, U.S. shopping mall vacancies reach 8-year high (a post-financial crisis high reached in 2011) according to data from Reis, part of Moody's Analytics. This was also picked up by some major news outlets like the Financial Times which wrote a summary article following the negative sentiment around the bankruptcy of Forever 21, which has earmarked 178 locations in the U.S..
Some key highlights of the findings include:
- 9.4% of units were vacant/unoccupied in Q3 (data tracks 77 metro areas)
- 17 cities had a vacancy rate below