2001 Retail Outlook Gets Boost From Lifestyle Centers

CHICAGO-Contrary to jitters caused by the bankruptcy of Montgomery Wards and a slowdown in consumer spending, the retail market here should see signs of new life, professionals at the Real Estate Investment Association’s/Society for Industrial and Office Realtors’ Summit 2001 were told recently. Specifically, growth can be expected in lifestyle shopping centers in affluent areas with a mix of emerging specialty retailers as well as in the furthest reaches of the suburbs.

Overall, retail sales should be flat in 2001, says Robert Michaels of General Growth Properties, with vacancy rates avering 7.5%. “The thing to remember about retail, it was never as good as people said it was in 2000, or as bad as they say it’ll be in 2001,” Michaels said.

However, A. Rick Scardino, vice president of Grubb & Ellis’ retail services group, suggests a land of opportunity for new retail development lies west of Randall Road, a north-south highway connecting suburbs on the western fringe of the Chicago market–residential growth is stretching it to Illinois Route 47–or south of the end of Interstate 355, which has a chance to be extended. “Retailers need to follow, just like homeowners do, the road network,” Scardino says, which has brought development to farflung villages such as Elburn, Manhattan, Mokena and Oswego.