Third-quarter mall vacancies slid to 5.5 percent from 5.6 percent in the second quarter, while mall rents rose 0.2 percent to $37.67 per square foot, Reis told The Wall Street Journal.
Escalating construction costs have kept retail construction in check, which helped subdue vacancy rates, Reis Senior Consultant Andrew Wright told SCT Newswire.
Open-air centers posted good numbers too. Asking rents for this format rose 0.9 percent for the quarter, to $17.48 per square foot. The vacancy rate among these centers was 6.9 percent, down slightly from the second quarter's 7 percent. The current vacancy rate is just one percentage point above the historic low of 5.9 percent, which the sector achieved in the fourth quarter of 2000.
The Reis study surveyed the 62 biggest U.S. retail real estate markets.
