Offices are a lot emptier than they used to be. New lab buildings are just empty, period. Even industrial warehouses — a bright spot this decade for Greater Boston’s commercial real estate industry — are seeing increasing vacancies.
If you had told investors immediately after COVID-19’s arrival that retail would be the most stable type of commercial real estate in 2025, they would not have believed you. Everyone was shopping online. Amazon was ascendant. But against the odds, that’s what has happened. The region’s 2.2% retail vacancy rate this past quarter is the lowest in decades, according to data provided by JLL.
