Retail

Retail is in transition. The global pandemic has exacerbated tendencies toward online shopping and many retailers have not survived. As trends toward home delivery services intensify, retailers are considering downsizing or closing their high street stores in favour of storage and distribution facilities house in warehouses. The future of the high street is in question and a much higher proportion of empty retail units is already present and predicted to increase over the coming years.

As trends toward home delivery services intensify, retailers are considering downsizing or closing their high street stores in favour of storage and distribution facilities house in warehouses

Retail units are rarely suitable for protection by live-in guardians but can provide some very substantial benefits for charities in terms of footfall and public accessibility. We provide our retail-landlord clients with charitable occupiers who can reduce the business rate liability, create savings in security costs and mitigate the risks which would be created by leaving a property unoccupied.

Using a charitable occupier to protect a vacant retail unit instead of leaving it unoccupied can fill a hole in the high street and thereby alleviate the appearance that the area is in decline. By being transformed into pop-up galleries, event spaces and community hubs vacant retail units can be transformed into hives of activity which can provide social value and increase how attractive a unit is to prospective tenants.