Market Reports

The Pittsburgh retail market remained tight throughout the third quarter of 2011, maintaining a vacancy rate at just over 5 percent. Absorption within the market edged close to 200,000 square feet, with new big box and specialty retailers entering the region. The influx of grocery and discount chains continued with the opening of Trader Joe’s in Pittsburgh’s South Route 19 submarket. The 12,000-square-foot specialty market is the company’s second location in the area. In addition, Fresh Market confirmed its entrance in the Pittsburgh region just down the street from Trader Joe’s. The high-end specialty grocer has purchased a former Roth Carpet site and plans to demolish the existing building in preparation for a new 18,000-square-foot store. Construction is scheduled to commence in the spring of 2012. Big box retailers ALDI, Bottom Dollar, Walmart and BJ’s Wholesale Club are scouting the area for additional locations as well. Bottom Dollar Foods has taken occupancy of more than 60,000 square feet year-to-date and has approximately 40,000 square feet in two new locations scheduled to open in early 2012. The discount food chain prefers to anchor strip centers or neighborhood shopping centers within the area’s suburban submarkets. Though development activity has been largely focused …

With a strong economic foundation based upon the education, healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, the greater Philadelphia market has long been revered as one of the most stable markets in the United Statesthat isunaffected by the manic swings often experienced by other major markets. Even at the height of the recession, savvy retailers remained relatively active in top-tier, well-positioned segments of the market. In fact, several used the recession to position themselves more strategically and affordably in tough-to-penetrate areas, minus the frenzied competition they faced before the downturn. The black eye created by the closures of Circuit City and Linens ‘N Things, two of the most high-profile retail bankruptcies of the recession, has seemingly healed faster here than elsewhere,as many of the junior anchor spaces they vacated are getting absorbed by several electronics retailers. hhgregg, which had 12 simultaneous openings in the region on May 20, 6th Avenue Electronics and P.C. Richard & Sons are the most conspicuous of said retailers. hhgregg is making its first retail foray into the Northeast while the more regionally oriented 6th Avenue Electronics and P.C. Richard & Sons found themselves conveniently based in the New York metropolitan area and able to take advantage of these …