There hasn't been a major liquidation announcement by a companylike Borders for a while, but that doesn't mean that there stillisn't ongoing space to fill out there, says MarkDufton, chief executive officer of DJMRealty, a Gordon Brothers Group company.His firm, which helps fill spaces left by closures will beexhibiting next week at the ICSC New York National Conference inthe Hilton Hotel's Americas Hall 1 Booth #362. Herecently spoke with GlobeSt.com about the store-closing situation,those who are filling vacancies and other trends.

GlobeSt.com: It seems like there are less mass storeclosures taking place. Is that evident on your end of thebusiness?

Mark Dufton: A lot of the closures arejust by natural expiration at this point, mainly because theretailers don’t want to take a charge or a write off to close a biggroup of stores that aren’t expiring where they have a remainingbalance on the lease obligation. I’m not so sure that we’ve seen aslowdown in the number of closures, but it’s just a different typeof closure. You’re still getting a healthy supply of excess spacecoming into the marketplace. It’s just not being backfilled thatquickly, and if it is being backfilled, it’s being backfilled atlower rents. It’s so market specific right now. The real good realestate, in “A”-quality markets and locations, the rent has held upreally well. There is plenty of demand for that space. But thereseems to be an increasing gap between the “A” stuff and the “B” and“C” locations. That’s where you really see a tail off in the rentsand an increase in the vacancy. That’s the dynamic that is takingplace right now. In general, retailers are extremely cautious aboutopening new stores. They’re just not willing to put their capitalat risk. Even when they do settle on a new store, it has to gothrough two or three real estate committees as opposed to realestate guys teeing it up, rubber stamping it, and getting the storeopen. That just doesn’t happen any more. It really takes justabout twice as long to get a lease done. It probably takes a yearas opposed to six months. You can’t lose money on a store you don’topen, so they’re just particularly careful about it. And whatthey’re trying to do on top of that is offload some of that capitalexpenditure back on the landlord. Retailers are asking for moretenant allowances.