Cities with the most opportunity for new retail storefronts
COVID-19 was supposed to change the way Americans shopped. Experts widely predicted that people's new habits of purchasing most goods online or using in-store and curbside pickup would remain after the pandemic ended. But two years later, consumers have gone back to in-person shopping.
To find which cities have the most opportunity for new retail locations, Swyft Filings used data from Lee & Associates' 2022 Market Report to rank cities, creating an index that factors in retail space vacancy, cost, and new space being built. To get its index, this analysis looked at July 2022 to September 2022 data and ranked each of those three measures across 53 cities identified in the report, then averaged the rankings.
Brick-and-mortar retail sales topped $382 billion in August 2022, according to Lee & Associates, almost 25% higher than before COVID-19. In-person Black Friday shopping in 2022 was also up 12% from 2021, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse.
As consumers flock back to stores, retailers are opening more physical locations. U.S. retail space is at its lowest vacancy rate in 15 years, at 4.3%, according to Lee & Associates. This is causing retail rents to rise again—they've grown 4.2% annually through the third quarter. Supply levels are also on the rise; there are 61 million square feet of retail space in development, much of which is already leased.
