Shopping centers are having a moment, propelled by increased foot traffic to grocery stores, curbside pickup and population shifts that favor suburban shopping.
Landlords filled 17 million square feet of additional real-estate space in open-air shopping centers last quarter, a 49% increase from 2019, according to commercial real-estate services firm CBRE Group Inc. That marks a 10-year high for net absorption, or the total space occupied minus what has been vacated.