The closure headlines and the vacancy data have been telling different stories, and property owners underwriting corridor risk should know which one to weight. Cushman & Wakefield reported national shopping center vacancy at 5.7 percent at the end of 2025, roughly 40 basis points above the cyclical low of 5.3 percent set a year earlier, supported by new construction deliveries of only 10.2 million square feet, the lowest in the series' history and about 63 percent below the 2015–2019 average. Five bankrupt brands drove more than half of all 2025 closure square footage. The mechanism is straightforward: when almost nothing new is being built, closures get absorbed by existing tenant demand instead of compounding into structural vacancy. That makes 2025 a reshuffle rather than a collapse, and it makes the closure-tracker mood a poor basis for an income-approach appeal.

Watch: 2026 vacancy and construction delivery figures. If deliveries recover or demand softens, the absorption mechanism that made the closure wave manageable stops working, and it stops working quickly.

Source: Cushman & Wakefield U.S. Shopping Center MarketBeat, Q4 2025; Coresight Research closure tracking as reported

Verification note: Obtain the figures from the primary MarketBeat report and confirm whether a more recent quarter is available.