Office, Retail and Industrial Markets Slowly Improving
The commercial real estate market continues to slowly improve, lifting itself out of a slump that hit in 2010.
The overall market has stumbled along the way, but all in all, the industry is heading in the right direction, area brokers say.
"We're starting to see projects on the radar for the first time in a long time," said Lee Warfield, president of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, a commercial real estate firm based in Henrico County.
Anchor tenants, for example, are being sought for Fairfield Commons Mall, which could be razed and rebuilt, off Nine Mile Road in eastern Henrico. "This is a healthy sign," Warfield said.
And the long bulldozed Azalea Mall in North Richmond is back on the books for a project, possibly a grocery store, he said.
"The best indicator of a healthy or improving market is when existing companies take additional space or new companies move into the market," Thalhimer's Magrill said.
New companies from outside the market haven't moved here yet. But Allianz and SunTrust Banks Inc. taking more space speak to an improving market, he said.
The retail market continues to improve, despite large retailers such as Best Buy, Kmart, Gander Mountain, Dillard's and Food Lion closing some of their area locations this year.
Unlike the office sector, which suffered in 2009 and 2010, the retail sector never saw a big spike in vacancies, Magrill said.
Specialty grocer The Fresh Market and pet-supply retailer Petco are scheduled to open stores this year in Carytown Place, a development in the former Verizon building at Nansemond Street and Ellwood Avenue.
Food Lion closed two area stores this year, but the one in the Gleneagles Shopping Center off Ridgefield Parkway in western Henrico reopened as the second location of Libbie Market. At 32,000 square feet, the new Libbie Market Ridgefield is about three times as large as the original market on Libbie Avenue between Grove and Patterson avenues.
