Retail Sector in Atlanta, GA Poised for a Resilient Recovery in 2022
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In the commercial real estate space, retail feels a bit like Schrödinger’s cat: it’s both alive and dead depending on how you look at it. Take Atlanta for example: sure, big names like Sears and JcPenney are fading away, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t big retail deals going on.
The post-pandemic era brings new uncertainties but also new trends: people are slowly signaling that they’re weary of restrictions and ready to go back to doing something easily understood from coast to coast: shopping.
Finding retail space for sale in Atlanta, GA is a matter of looking at current trends, building a plan, and thinking about the potential pitfalls of the acquisition process.
It’s a marathon, not a sprint. But any good marathon needs the right gear, and in this case, gear equals information.
Is the In-Person Shopping Experience That Important?
In a word? Yes. Earlier this month, TD Bank released a new report that indicates consumers are going right back to their spending levels and in-person experience-hunting in 2022 and beyond. Not only did their report suggest that consumers are going back to in-person shopping and dining, it also reports that consumers are spending more than they have before.
The tight restrictions of the past are leading to a pressure valve overflow situation, where consumers are making up for lost time and feeling pressure to spend before things go back to lockdown.
Retail is making a comeback, and big cities like Atlanta are in need of some good news. Restaurants, shopping malls, and other in-person experiences took a nosedive during the worse of the pandemic, and recovery has been slower than analysts and business owners expected.
The uncertainty makes some fear going in public to spend, shifting their focus to delivery and online ordering instead. Yet some things just don’t translate well to online shopping, such as buying clothes.
The Heart of the Retail Experience: All the Senses
The reason for the rise in the retail experience offline is simple: shopping is better when all senses are engaged. Retail therapy is a real thing, and it makes sense that people going through an unprecedented event like the pandemic are ready for something more familiar and comforting.
A quiet afternoon moving from shop to shop to get meaningful gifts or just to check out what’s new is quite familiar and missed after not being able to move about freely.
As vaccination rates rise and people try to get back to a feeling of normalcy, retail is poised to reign supreme in new and innovative ways. Impulse buys are more than what they appear, after all.
Big Retail Space Acquisitions in Atlanta Tell the Tale
As always, following large institutional CRE firms can reveal big trends in a marketplace. One of the more interesting acquisitions in Atlanta for retail space is a deal that went down in January.
JLL Capital Markets closed on a massive 281,064 sq ft retail center in Roswell, a key suburb in Atlanta. The sticker price? $39.11 million, far from pocket change.
Here’s what’s most interesting about the deal: it’s courting an affluent market that definitely wants to get out there and shop. While it’s grocery-anchored through Publix, that isn’t the only game in the retail space. The area is primed for explosive growth as the GA-400 Express Lane project is slated for primetime in 2027.
The reality is that big retail projects don’t happen without a lot of time, energy, and money. This acquisition wasn’t by random chance; firms are investing in the area’s potential and it is very likely to pay off.
Roswell, like many of Atlanta’s suburbs, is full of affluent working professionals that want to have easy shopping options close by. Getting home from work to having to commute further to enjoy good retail opportunities isn’t palatable for most affluent consumers.
Building on the Retail Opportunities in Atlanta
Scoping out good retail opportunities in Atlanta is easier than ever before. It’s still a process, but one made easier through technology.
Here are a few considerations to make along the way.
- Get really clear about what the ideal retail space looks like.
- How divisible should the ideal space be in order to accommodate multiple tenants?
- Don’t forget to think about access points. When looking through free commercial real estate listings, take the time to pull up every interesting property on a map. Sometimes a “bargain” property isn’t a bargain when it’s clear nobody can access the space!
- Keep working on good deal analysis: careful study is better than fast, disorganized analysis.
- The best deals are often off-market through a strong network, but still, look at what’s in the free listings as a starting point.
The more care given to hunting for retail space for sale in Atlanta, GA, the more likely it is that you’ll uncover a real winner instead of a real stinker. Like other forms of commercial real estate, not all retail space is created equal.
The Road Ahead
Having a strong plan for retail space is far more than just the initial acquisition. It takes a lot to build the type of commercial property portfolio that can support the expansion of retail and other big business goals.
Start with a good analysis of the sub-niche of CRE that interests you the most, and then start digging. The initial deals that look interesting, after all, tend to fall apart after closer analysis.
Does it have to be a big retail project at the very beginning? Not at all. Retail is flexible, and even a small space can attract a good client that wants to settle into the space to test out a new business idea and give back to the community. When viewed from the 50,000-foot level, communities really can’t exist without strong retail opportunities.
Giving people a place to shop is beneficial not just for the shoppers, but for the many people employed by the retail sector. For people working and going to school or families looking for flexibility, retail is often their entrance to opportunity.
The beauty of the commercial real estate sphere isn’t just the ROI for buyers, but the true impact the CRE world has on the community at large.
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