From the annual Charlotte Commercial Forecast, as reported by the Charlotte Observer. Two things stick out in my mind:
• Mix use is growing but also more difficult to finance. The financing issue isn’t really surprising as mix use contains multiple types of risk — apartments, retail, and office space say and those different market segments might not all be going in the exact same direction and at the same exact rate.
• Speaking of retail, there’s this from Wells Fargo economist Mark Vinter on the future retail in general and malls in particular:
“I don’t need to go to the store, everything’s brought to me…That’s a real challenge for retailers,” said Vitner. “If you look at what owners of retail space are having to do, you go to a shopping center now and it might be all restaurants, maybe some sort of a karate studio or nail salon. But there are very few things that face Internet competition that are in grocery stores anymore.”
That trend will only accelerate, Vitner said: “We’re going to see more consolidation of the department stores, and there’s going to be a big push to remake a lot of the struggling malls around the country…There’s a lot more change coming on that front.”
Interesting.
