Market Reports

Retail real estate across the Mid-Atlantic is having a moment — but it’s a disciplined one. As fundamentals remain healthy in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., the region is seeing a notably more selective approach to retail growth. Years of limited new development, zoning constraints and rising construction costs have tightened supply, pushing owners, investors and municipalities to be far more intentional about what gets built — and where. Sources interviewed for this article point to the sustained demand for well-located shopping centers, such as those anchored by strong tenants, daily-needs retailers and dense surrounding populations.“Retail today is about durability,” states Mike Castellitto, chief operating officer of Broad Reach Retail Partners. “Assets that serve essential, repeat-use visitors continue to outperform and attract both tenants and investors.” Shifting consumer preferences in VirginiaFrom Washington, D.C.’s dense suburban corridors to fast-growing secondary markets, Virginia’s retail real estate landscape remains one of the Mid-Atlantic’s steadiest performers. The Commonwealth’s strongest retail fundamentals are often seen in Northern Virginia and select regional hubs like metro Philadelphia, Virginia Beach and Richmond, where household income growth and population density create robust demand. Jim Ashby, senior vice president of the Retail Services Group at Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, …

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— By Joel Fountain of Dickson Commercial Group —  After several years defined by rapid expansion and record development, Northern Nevada’s industrial market closed 2025 showing clear signs of stabilization. Vacancy leveled off, leasing momentum returned and capital markets activity began to pick back up. All told, these indicators point to a market that’s entering a more balanced phase. One of the most notable shifts has been the normalization of vacancy after an unprecedented wave of new supply. Direct vacancy hovered around 11 percent throughout 2025, suggesting the market has reached a temporary equilibrium between supply and demand. While elevated compared to the sub-3 percent vacancy levels seen during the pandemic-driven surge, continued positive absorption helped keep the market stable as it digested several million square feet of recently delivered product. In terms of region, submarket performance varied considerably. Central-West, Airport and South Reno tightened meaningfully during the year, with combined vacancy falling from 10.4 percent in late 2024 to 6.1 percent by the end of 2025. These areas benefited from limited new construction and steady demand from regional service users and smaller distribution tenants. Conversely, the North Valleys and the I-80 East corridor, which accounted for roughly 83 percent …

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By Abigail Sievers, JLL The Indianapolis industrial market is entering 2026 not merely recovering but evolving. What began as a “quiet” shift has matured into a definitive new phase of activity characterized by renewed user confidence, disciplined development and a manufacturing ecosystem that’s gaining national attention.  While headlines often focus on coastal or larger Midwest markets, Indianapolis is steadily emerging as a strategic center for large-scale industrial investment, offering the rare trifecta of scalable Class A space, a resilient workforce and the high-capacity infrastructure that modern manufacturers require. Mega deals return After more than two years of cautious expansion, the market is now seeing a resurgence of large industrial commitments. Leases and acquisitions exceeding 500,000 square feet — which had significantly slowed during the previous 24 months — are re-entering the landscape as users move forward with previously paused growth plans amid market uncertainty.  The broader leasing environment reflects this momentum. In fourth-quarter 2025 alone, Indianapolis recorded 7.2 million square feet of absorption — the strongest single‑quarter performance since the third quarter of 2021. Year‑to‑date absorption reached 13.1 million square feet, surpassing the previous two years combined. These mega deals confirm what we’re hearing daily from both new and existing …

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By Greg Tannor, executive managing director, and Jessica Gerstein, director, Lee & Associates NYC For much of the past three years, the rollout of legal cannabis in the state of New York has been defined by headlines about licensing delays, regulatory hurdles and political infighting.  That phase is largely over. Hundreds of adult-use dispensaries are now open across the state, and the market is entering a far more consequential — and less discussed — stage. Cannabis retail in New York is no longer constrained primarily by licenses. It is constrained by real estate. On the ground, the industry is moving rapidly out of its novelty phase and into a performance-driven phase where locational quality, operational discipline and realistic deal structures are separating winners from losers. This shift has major implications, not only for operators, but also for landlords, lenders and brokers who are navigating the sector for the first time. Compliance, Not Curiosity, Is The New Bottleneck Demand from licensed dispensary operators remains strong, particularly in New York City. But truly viable retail locations that meet state and local requirements while also making economic sense remain scarce. In Manhattan, the challenge is especially acute. Buffer zones restricting proximity to schools, houses of worship …

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Nashville’s retail market continues to outperform many peer metros across the Southeast, supported by steady population growth, a diversified employment base and a prolonged period of limited new supply. Despite broader economic uncertainty and rising operating costs, fundamentals across Middle Tennessee remain healthy, with vacancy holding near historically low levels.  Tight conditions, leasing  That strength is reflected in current occupancy trends. Retail vacancy throughout the region sits at approximately 3.6 percent, signaling sustained tenant demand within a constrained inventory environment. New construction has remained limited as elevated material and labor costs have pushed many proposed developments outside workable underwriting thresholds.  As a result, existing centers, particularly well-located neighborhood and suburban assets, continue to capture consistent leasing activity.  Core, emerging submarkets  Demand remains strongest in Nashville’s core and established growth corridors, including Green Hills, Vanderbilt/West End, 12th South/Wedgewood-Houston, Charlotte Pike/Sylvan Park and the Cool Springs pocket of Franklin. These areas benefit from dense residential growth, strong household incomes and reliable consumer traffic, supporting above-average rent levels.  At the same time, tightening availability and rising barriers to entry in the urban core have accelerated growth across surrounding satellite markets. Submarkets such as Lebanon, Clarksville, Murfreesboro and Smyrna have emerged as meaningful retail …

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— By J.C. Casillas of NAI Capital — Orange County’s multifamily sector entered 2026 in a period of moderation. Following a recent peak in deliveries, fourth-quarter 2025 saw developers pull back sharply, allowing vacancy to stabilize at a tight 3.8 percent even as rent growth plateaued. The shift reflects strategic caution as elevated interest rates and pricing expectations continue to shape underwriting. Demand and Supply Navigating the ‘Supply Cliff’ Vacant units inched up 0.1 percent quarter over quarter to 11,926 but remained down 1.6 percent year over year, signaling gradual relief from earlier supply pressure. Developers delivered just 430 new units in the fourth quarter, a 26 percent drop from the third quarter. This brought year-to-date deliveries to 1,979 units, down 43 percent from 2024. With only 4,775 units still under construction — a 14 percent annual decline — the market is approaching a potential supply cliff that could tighten inventory by 2027. Vacancy held at 3.8 percent, suggesting steady renter demand. Average asking rents slipped $9 from the third quarter to $2,702 per unit. The good news is it still posted a 1.7 percent year-over-year gain. Since the 2024 development peak, higher borrowing costs and construction expenses have tempered the …

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By Aghfar Arun, Bradford Allen Indianapolis has a reputation as a convention town, but its hotel story has moved well beyond lanyards and name badges. A growing mix of sports, healthcare, corporate and leisure demand is now filling rooms year‑round — downtown and across the suburbs — turning the market into one of the Midwest’s most reliable hospitality overachievers. Event boom downtown Indianapolis experienced 8.1 million room nights of demand in the 12-month period ending at mid-year 2025, according to CoStar data. This is over 580,000 more than the market’s pre-COVID peak.  To meet this demand, the construction pipeline at mid-year included more than 1,500 hotel rooms, with another 3,402 rooms in the final planning stages and 3,220 rooms proposed.  According to Visit Indy, new projects slated for delivery in 2026 include a pair of adaptive reuse projects: The Kimpton will transform the historic Odd Fellows Building into a 167-key luxury hotel and the Motto Hotel will bring 116 rooms to the King Cole Building. The most notable project is Signia by Hilton, a 38-story hotel with 800 guest rooms developed alongside a 143,500-square-foot expansion of the Indiana Convention Center.   A snapshot of downtown Indianapolis, prepared last year by …

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By Taylor Williams AUSTIN, TEXAS — A successful real estate strategy for both developers and operators looking to penetrate Austin’s airtight retail market must involve both a long-term growth plan and a site selection process that primarily targets suburban areas. Austin’s sizzling pace of population growth has slowed in the past year or two, but the state capital remains highly undersupplied in terms of housing. Land and other development costs have become frightfully expensive within the urban core, and like other Texas markets, Austin is emerging from a multifamily building boom within its urban core and first-ring suburbs. In addition, vacant, quality retail space within those areas of Austin is a rare commodity. Earlier this year, the Austin-American Statesman, citing data from Weitzman, reported that Austin had a marketwide retail vacancy rate of just 3 percent at the end of 2025. And according to a first-quarter 2025 report from Partners Real Estate, Austin’s retail occupancy rate has not dipped below 95 percent at any point in the past decade. Editor’s note: InterFace Conference Group, a division of France Media Inc., produces networking and educational conferences for commercial real estate executives. To sign up for email announcements about specific events, visit www.interfaceconferencegroup.com/subscribe. As such, …

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With office leasing and development, we’re always looking forward to the next big thing. Nashville’s office market is no exception to that. Sometimes no news is good news, though. That may be the case with the metro’s office development, where only four projects totaling 279,320 square feet were underway at the close of 2025 — 44.1 percent of which was preleased. At the beginning of 2020, Nashville’s construction pipeline was nearly 10 percent of its inventory size — the second-highest share out of any U.S. metro.  Since then, 8.5 million square feet of office product has been delivered, and despite overlapping with a global pandemic, nearly 80 percent of it has been leased — underscoring the market’s appetite for quality office space. While that office space has not been absorbed as quickly as some had hoped, market trends and activity suggest that nearly 90 percent of it will be absorbed by the end of 2026, proving the Nashville office market’s resilience.  As we approach the end of the first quarter, Nashville’s office market is off to a good start, despite some uncooperative icy weather. Although local tenants continue to lead occupancy growth, sizable multi-market requirements have continued to increase, pushing …

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Mixed-use development across the Southeast continues to change and evolve. What was once as straightforward as building residential apartments located above a street-level retail component has become something far more sophisticated and intentional. Today’s mixed-use communities offer integrated, experience-driven environments where all elements of living, working, shopping, dining and recreation are thoughtfully curated, with connectivity as a primary focus. The North Georgia region, located approximately 40 miles north of Atlanta, is where residential demand is rising, incomes are growing and consumer preferences are changing. As these trends converge, developers seek the opportunity to create true neighborhood hubs in the area. The Crossing at Coal Mountain, located in Forsyth County, is a new 140-acre mixed-use destination by Atlantic Residential that reflects how development strategies are evolving in response to these market shifts. The project will feature walkable streets, activated green spaces, local dining, daily lifestyle services and a carefully programmed retail plaza alongside luxury homes being developed in partnership with national homebuilder Toll Brothers. Each of the project’s planned elements is designed to support a true live-work-play environment. Phase I of the project’s retail district is on track to open this year, positioning the development to contribute to the region’s broader …

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