New Mexico

— By Anthony Johnson, President, Pegasus Group and Western Regional Director, X Team Retail Advisors; and AJ Johnson, Associate Broker, Pegasus Group — Looking back on the Albuquerque retail market for 2022 and 2023, I have to say that 2022 was the height of our boom in terms of the sale/lease of shopping center and freestanding pad sales, built-to-suit opportunities and redevelopment opportunities. The top consumers of these product types were chicken (QSR), coffee, car washes and cannabis, or as we affectionately called them, the “Four C’s.” Due to the sheer amount of activity in the pad user market, underutilized was a key word during this time. We saw vacant pad sites that were once considered unleasable or unsellable, perking the interest of investors, tenants and developers. By 2022 the negative effects of the pandemic had subsided, which resulted in the most robust year we’ve ever seen in terms of pad sales/leases. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like a crescendo… and then, the “music” stopped.  It was February of 2023 when the music started to get fainter. By August 2023, the music stopped, and now we’re seeing the aftermath of this. Meaning, many of the pad sites …

— By Anthony Johnson, AJ Johnson and Chris Fiello, Pegasus Group — New Mexico is no different than the rest of the nation and is not immune to some of the same symptoms that are taxing the national retail market. However, New Mexico retail is also showing signs of resilience as it reshapes itself and finds ways to weather the storms of high interest rates, major brand closures, economic uncertainty and crime.  As of now, the big issue is in the theft and resale of retail goods. Indeed, the problem of brazen theft — which is seen in countless cites in the nation — has led New Mexico Gov. Lujan Grisham to announce the revival of the Governor’s Organized Crime Prevention Commission. The hopes are to crackdown on this behavior, which is having a detrimental impact on the bottom line for New Mexico businesses, especially small ones. This onslaught of petty shoplifting to organized sprees of large-scale theft has caused retailers large and small to exit locations. Target, for example, announced in May that it was preparing for a loss of half a billion dollars this year because of rising theft.  In 2023, New Mexico saw multiple store closures, including several …