It’s no secret within the commercial lending and investment community that retail is often the property type more institutional capital sources underweight for allocation of investment capital. Retail is notorious for tipping the scales regarding undesirable metrics like loan delinquency (the highest among core property types at 4.29 percent versus 2.98 percent for office) and value decline. However, many vacated malls, shopping centers, and big-box stores have desirable location attributes — frontage along primary commercial arterials and public transit routes, proximity to employment centers, and site configuration or building design that’s well-suited for adaptive reuse. Adaptive reuse of these buildings — the most impactful, powerful trend for retail between now and 2025 — is ideal in meeting ongoing demand for affordable housing, industrial warehouse utilization, off-hospital campus medical use, and even coworking office space. The central question now, however, for legacy storefronts is one of best use to unlock its market value for retail. Both retailers and communities have a vested interest in putting these real estate assets back to productive use to recapture lost property value and return vacant buildings to new uses accretive to property and local tax revenues. Click to read more at www.ccim.com.