By Nellie Day All of Los Angeles County might have been under the same restrictions throughout the pandemic, but their emergence from this period reveals a lot about the localized retail environments. “Los Angeles’ retail market has weathered COVID better than many other markets around the country,” says Matthew May, founder of May Realty Advisors in the Los Angeles submarket of Sherman Oaks, Calif. “However, the recovery has favored a diverse group of suburban markets.” Certain Suburbs Stand Out Markets like East Hollywood/Silver Lake, Inglewood/South LA and Santa Clarita boasted the highest 12-month rolling net absorptions in the county, according to CoStar — something May doesn’t believe was expected. “LA is known as a melting pot and this is reflected in the geographic and ethnic makeup of the top submarkets based on net absorption,” he says. “Vacancies in many of the suburbs were substantially less than in the Central Business Districts and tony retail areas from Beverly Hills to Abbott Kinney. These emerging markets were quite a surprise.” On the other hand, metro markets like Santa Monica, Downtown LA and Koreatown each had more than 100,000 square feet of negative absorption. Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade has been one of …
