DALLAS—Grocery-anchored centers continued to be an attractiveproperty type for investors in 2017, with sales volumes increasingby 5.3%. The asset class remained stable amid a period of lowretail transaction volumes. But after grocery store expansions went bananas in 2016, the industrytook a minute to digest the following year. Openings of new grocerystores reached 13.4 million square feet of space, which is adecrease of 28.8% year-over-year, according to JLL's grocerytracker 2018 report.

“It's not surprising that overall grocery store expansions fellin 2017, when compared to the boom in 2016. The largest grocerychains are feeling pressure from specialty grocers, discountgrocers and wholesale clubs. But we are seeing strong local chainscompeting head to head, and winning. Locations within the tradearea and in the right markets are key. More than one-third of newstore openings were in just three states: California with 1.6million square feet, and North Carolina and Virginia with growth of2.7 million square feet across both states. Retail followsrooftops, so the states with strong population growth will continueto see an influx of grocers,” said James Cook, director of retailresearch, JLL.