Retail Reframed challenges conventional wisdom, refocuses the usual premise and asks unvarnished, thought-provoking questions about issues that drive opportunity.
In this issue
Dynamic Impact: Why We Love Retail
Retail‘s Resurgence: Where Is the Smart Money Going Now?
Mallmaxxing and the Third Place: Retail’s Belonging Economy
The Customer Journey: Why the Store Is Still Winning the Battle
Last Touch: The Evolving Frontier of Logistics
Dynamic Impact: Why We Love Retail
It may sound corny, but let’s just say it: We love retail. And for good reason. It may look like a smaller piece of the real estate landscape, but the stats tell another story. Retailers make up most of the top U.S. real estate occupiers — 72% of the top 25 and 52% of the top 50, according to CBRE data.
Small wonder real estate gets so much attention from the retail C-suite. In most industries, real estate is important, but it’s rarely a consistent CEO-level priority. Retail is different. For retailers, real estate isn’t overhead. It’s an impression, acquisition or revenue portal. It’s how they grow, how they compete and how they win. That difference makes retailers highly sophisticated real estate decision-makers and, frankly, among the most discerning clients to serve. High standards make for better partnerships and better outcomes.
Retail is at the heart of our communities. It makes a visible, tangible imprint on the places we call home. It’s also why Retail is the one line of business that touches every other line of business and every service type that we offer, from capital markets, leasing, supply chain, property and project management to data centers and beyond. Retail’s breadth demands real investment, real expertise and a genuine commitment to excellence. CBRE has made that commitment — deliberately and visibly, with continued investment across every retail business line. We haven’t pulled back, we’ve leaned in. We’re committed to guiding the future of retail with smart real estate strategies. And we’re loving it. While we typically keep away from these kinds of statements in Retail Reframed, this felt important to us to say and say now.
No better place to feel that energy than ICSC Las Vegas in May. If you’re heading to Las Vegas, come find us. We’ll be the ones who can’t stop talking about … retail.
Retail's Resurgence: Where is the Smart Money Going Now?
The asset class institutional capital spent a decade avoiding is now the one everyone wants, and last month, our own investment management arm put capital behind that conviction. CBRE Investment Management closed on a seven-property portfolio across five states, in a joint venture with MCB Real Estate. The portfolio, totaling about 1.1 million square feet, is anchored by grocers — HEB, Kroger, Harris Teeter, The Fresh Market and Safeway. That kind of deal wouldn’t have happened five years ago.
Why now? The fundamentals are hard to argue with. New supply has hit historical lows. Occupancy is still tight. Rent growth remains positive, especially at grocery-anchored centers and well-located open-air properties. CBRE IM’s own portfolio manager put it directly: "New retail supply has been structurally constrained since the GFC, and grocery-anchored centers combine that scarcity with daily-needs tenancy that holds up across cycles."
Retail media networks are making the same push, expanding from sponsored search into CTV, streaming and off-site, using first-party data to chase shoppers up the funnel. U.S. retail media ad spend is projected to approach $70 billion in 2026, growing faster than the overall digital ad market. The question isn't whether to be in retail media. It's whether RMNs can earn the upper-funnel budget they want.
Every major platform is building toward an instant path from discovery to purchase. But consumer behavior may be moving in the opposite direction — from TikTok to ChatGPT to in-store and back again. That's not a compressed funnel. That's a longer, messier, multi-touchpoint journey no single platform owns. And at the center of every version of that journey is a physical address.
So who owns the customer journey funnel? For real estate, that's the central question of the decade. Every dollar flowing into social commerce and retail media is ultimately chasing the same consumer — and that consumer still ends up in a store. The physical location isn't the end of the funnel. It's an irreplaceable touchpoint in the client journey. Location, design and experience are not a real estate decisions; they're media decisions. Landlords and retailers who understand that are investing accordingly. Those who don't are waiting on a funnel that may never deliver customers the way it promised.
Mallmaxxing and the Third Place: Retail’s Belonging Economy
The concept of the "third place" — the social space between home and work — has been quietly reshaping retail for years. Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term in 1989, but the version that exists today looks nothing like what he described. People aren’t seeking third places to escape work anymore. They‘re bringing work with them, drawn by the ambient comfort of being around other people. The draw is less about amenity and more about belonging.
Retailers are responding, whether they realize it or not. Lululemon’s run clubs and community events have nothing to do with selling leggings and everything to do with giving people somewhere to belong. REI’s in-store workshops and Apple’s Today at Apple programming have quietly made their stores among the most-visited venues in many cities. These aren’t marketing stunts. They’re a bet that the store can be somewhere people want to be, not just somewhere they have to go. Nearly half of new tenants in major shopping centers are now experiential or service-based — fitness studios, entertainment venues, coworking spaces — a clear signal that landlords are making the same bet.
Enter Gen Z — and mallmaxxing. The TikTok-fueled trend of teens treating the mall as a full-day social destination is the latest proof that retail’s obituary was written too soon. There’s a cultural undercurrent here too: Gen Z has adopted ‘90s aesthetics, references and nostalgia as their own. And the mall, that quintessential ‘90s social institution, fits right in. According to Circana, shoppers age 18 to 24 made 62% of their general merchandise purchases in stores last year, outpacing older cohorts. Gen Z’s share of mall foot traffic rose 57% year over year, PwC reports. And with Gen Z spending projected to reach $12 trillion annually by 2030, this isn’t a blip. It’s a buying force.
But mallmaxxing isn’t really about shopping. It’s about belonging, which is exactly what the third-place thesis predicts. Three-quarters of 18-to-24-year-olds say "third spaces" inside malls influence where they choose to shop. The mall that wins Gen Z isn’t the one with the best anchor tenant. It’s the one that gives them somewhere to be — cafés, lounges, social areas.
So what? NRF notes that multisensory, community-driven destinations are generating real traffic — and real loyalty. The retailers and landlords that understand they’re in the belonging business, not just the transaction business, are the ones earning a permanent place in their customers’ routines. Space that doesn’t transact isn’t wasted; it might be exactly what draws Gen Z.
The catch: This rising tide isn’t lifting all boats. Top-tier malls in high-income suburbs are capturing this energy; lower-tier enclosed malls are not. Mallmaxxing sharpens an already widening divide. And for landlords, knowing which side of it you’re on has never mattered more.
Last Touch: The Evolving Frontier of Logistics
Just like the retail scene, the industrial real estate landscape is in a state of continuous evolution. Value is increasingly defined by proximity to the consumer, with "last-touch" logistics driving decisions. John Kirkman, who leads CBRE's supply chain and logistics services, has lived on both sides of that equation, first at Nike, now as a real estate advisor at CBRE. He shared his thoughts on a recent SupplyChainBrain podcast.
"Last touch" isn't a new buzzword. It's the fusion of "last mile" and "customer experience" into something more strategic. Last mile is a logistics equation: speed, scheduling, cost — a washer and dryer arriving on time. Last touch is a brand consideration. It's stocking the toothpaste near an urban hub so it can be delivered in a window that fits the customer's day, in a way that feels not incidental but intentional — a distinction that matters more than ever.
Nor is last touch a new concept. White-glove delivery has existed for decades. What's new is the expectation that every category deserves it. Consumer patience for friction has essentially hit zero. Same-day delivery, seamless returns and real-time tracking are now table stakes. Retailers who treat the final handoff as an afterthought are leaving loyalty on the table.
The real estate implications are significant. The playbook is being rewritten around not just how efficiently a facility moves goods but how close it sits to the end customer. Think urban infill locations, repurposed retail footprints, mixed-use assets doubling as micro-fulfillment nodes.
Retailers who invest in last touch are doing more than improving delivery. They're building a competitive edge. In a market where product parity is the norm, the experience of receiving something can be as powerful as the thing itself. Again, that's no longer logistics. That's brand.
Read On Recent readings with insights on and beyond commercial real estate
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