As online shopping has grown popular over the last couple of decades, many retailers have shifted resources from physical locations to online platforms. The COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated those changes, leaving shopping centers without anchor tenants. That creates a downward spiral by reducing foot traffic for those that remain.

In a recent report, Moody's Analytics attempts to understand what stores retailers choose to shutter versus keep open using the six components on the Moody's Analytics Commercial Location Score (CLS): business vitality, economic prosperity, spatial demand, safety, transportation, and local amenities. It uses proprietary data to examine the status of more than 1,000 properties recently occupied by one of six well-known national department store retailers

Moody's found that store closures are most related to declines in the level of economic prosperity, spatial demand and diminished access to quality transportation infrastructure. Firms are also prioritizing locations with sold transportation characteristics to ensure easy accessibility for their remaining locations.