The building of shopping centers in Moscow stopped: the commissioning of new malls decreased by 61%

Yekaterina Maksimova

"Until the end of 2022, according to the announced plans of developers, the volume of new commissioning in Moscow will amount to 136.6 thousand square meters of retail space: thus, the forecast for the new supply of shopping centers is reduced by 57.1%, and the total volume of commissioning by the end of the year will be lower than last year's figure by 62%. Also, by the end of the year, in the event of a deterioration in the general economic situation in the capital's shopping centers, the vacancy rate may increase to 17%, provided that options for replacing operators that have suspended their activities are not worked out", - NF Group analysts predict.

The increase in the share of vacant space in the mall has been recorded since February 2022, when well-known brands began to leave Russia en masse. By the end of the first half of the year, 13% of retail space was considered vacant in Moscow. Now the average vacancy rate is 14.5%. By the end of the year, according to NF Group forecasts, up to 17% of retail space will be empty.

The empty shops began to be crushed under small tenants. “One of the ways to fill large blocks that are most often vacated is to split small premises, which increases their attractiveness for potential tenants and reduces operating and capital costs”, - explained Yevgenia Khakberdieva, regional director of the NF Group retail real estate department.

Novye Izvestia reported that only at the end of September, against the background of the announced partial mobilization, traffic in Russian shopping and entertainment centers fell by an average of 7.4% on the market. "Shopping center attendance has fallen in recent weeks from 1% to 15%, depending on the location of the shopping center. District shopping centers have suffered the least. The largest shopping centers have the biggest loss in attendance," the official website of the Russian Council of Shopping Centers (RSTC) reports.

The fall in rental income, according to mall operators, is already 35-45% (representatives of the mall compared the data with the pre-pandemic 2019).

"Attendance is falling (to the level of 20% or more compared to the same period in 2021), as well as the vacancy of retail space is increasing to an abnormal value, which today can be up to 25-30% of the amount of leasable space", - said Dmitry Moskalenko.