Looking back at headlines from 2019, 2020, 2021, there are plenty of articles proclaiming the downfall of in-store retail. Doomed to disappear, supposedly, were a mass of brick-and-mortar locations. Ecommerce’s rocketing toward making up 17 percent of all retail sales during the pandemic was a signal to some that the retail apocalypse was here.

Three years later, quite a different picture is coming into focus. Not only have physical retail locations been proving themselves to be resilient to the changes in shopping habits, but merchants across the country have adapted to make retail one of the more intriguing and favorable property types in the United States.

Discussing the COVID-era spike in ecommerce, Brian Biggs, vice president, research and strategy, at Grosvenor, says, “What’s happened is we probably pulled forward a lot of adoption that would have happened naturally over a five-year period into six months because everyone had to do that [shop online] becaus