Retail developers get creative to fix big-box glut in Valley

The worst economic downturn in decades, consumers' new habits and changing industry trends are permanently altering the shopping landscape. Soaring retail vacancies, brought on by overbuilding, poor planning and a dramatic falloff in buyer spending promise to change the character of malls, power centers and small neighborhood marketplaces. Phoenix commercial real-estate brokerage CB Richard Ellis tallied about 17 million square feet of vacant retail space in metro Phoenix the end of the first quarter, or about 12 percent of the total. So-called big boxes of 10,000 square feet or more have been the hardest hit in the downturn. There were 300 such vacant spaces at the end of the quarter totaling 8.4 million square feet, according to CB Richard Ellis.

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