Downtown may be trendy, but landlords are thriving with properties often seen as suburban eyesores: strip malls and shopping centers.
The main reason: safety.
While economic uncertainty clouds the outlook for many businesses, owners of open-air retail space have gotten a relative boost because their tenants often include grocers, discount-clothing stores and pharmacies—stores that consumers shop at in good times and bad. “They’ll cut back on food a little bit. They’ll buy hamburger instead of filet mignon,” said Drew Alexander, chief executive of Weingarten Realty Investors, a Houston-based shopping-center landlord whose major tenants include grocers such as Kroger Co. and Whole Foods Market Inc. “But the important thing is they still come to the center.”