Elgin Development Group

07/22/2026

06/29/2026

Store openings overtake closings as retail leasing normalizes

After a wave of store closings in 2025, activity has normalized in 2026 as new stores modestly outpace shutdowns so far this year.

The shift reflects fewer large-scale retailer bankruptcies and demand for physical space from those in expansion mode, rather than any fundamental change in conditions for that type of real estate.

U.S. retailers have announced plans to open approximately 3,465 stores and close roughly 3,225 locations through mid-June, according to online retail store-tracking service Daily on Retail. For the same time last year, the number of announced store closings, at 3,935, exceeded openings, at 3,230. The reduction in closings is mainly driven by fewer distressed retailer shutdowns.

In 2025, a concentrated set of bankruptcies drove a disproportionate share of closings. That pipeline has since thinned, removing a key source of volatility.

Retailer expansions remain highly concentrated among value-oriented and necessity-based retailers, which continue to capture market share as consumers are more cost-conscious.

Dollar General, with 450 planned openings, and Dollar Tree, with 400, headline the list. Other expanding chains include O’Reilly Auto Parts with 225 planned store openings, and 7-Eleven with 200. Off-price and discount chains also remain active, with aggressive store openings planned by TJX, Burlington, Ross Stores, Five Below, and Ollie’s Bargain Outlet.

Grocery and essential retail operators are similarly active. Discount supermarket chain Aldi continues to expand its property, while Kroger, Tractor Supply and Whole Foods Market are pursuing incremental store growth tied to population shifts and share gains.

This concentration of store openings in value, grocery, and necessity retail is consistent with broader performance trends, in which these segments have continued to outperform discretionary categories in both traffic and sales.

Store closings, while still elevated in certain retail segments, is more fragmented and increasingly tied to portfolio optimization rather than broad-based distress.

GameStop, with 700 planned closings; 7-Eleven, with 645; women's fashion apparel retailer Francesca’s, with 450; and Family Dollar, with 350, account for a meaningful share of the announced reductions.

Excluding Francesca’s, each represents legacy footprint rationalizations rather than liquidation-driven events, largely due to retailers' decisions to exit underperforming locations and improve overall store productivity.

This trend of more retailers seeking to rationalize their store footprints rather than close locations in liquidation-driven events has become a defining characteristic of the current environment as more retailers simultaneously open and close stores. This is evident across multiple sectors and reflects a more normalized operating environment.

7-Eleven provides a clear example, as it plans to close hundreds of older, lower-performing locations while investing in new formats focused on prepared food and higher sales throughput.

Similar strategies are being employed across the apparel, specialty, and grocery sectors, where retailers are reallocating capital toward stronger markets, resizing store footprints, and adapting formats to evolving consumer behavior.

Digitally native brands and specialty retailers are also selectively expanding, reinforcing the concept of brick-and-mortar stores as a core component of omnichannel strategies.

Wayfair’s planned eighth large-format store and expansion from emerging concepts underscore how physical locations are increasingly being used to drive brand awareness, improve fulfillment economics, and support customer acquisition. These store openings tend to be targeted and market-specific, rather than broad-based, but remain an incremental source of demand for retail space.

From a real estate perspective, the net balance between store openings and closings is increasingly secondary to the churn itself. Vacated retail space is being absorbed at a steady pace by expanding tenants, particularly in value and service-oriented categories, preventing any sustained rise in availability.

The result is a retail real estate market defined less by contraction or expansion and more by continuous portfolio optimization, where retailers refine footprints in response to shifting demographics, operating costs and evolving demand patterns.

06/24/2026

Walmart signs nuclear power deal for warehouses; Oracle cuts jobs in AI push; Office attendance edges lower

Walmart signs nuclear power deal for warehouses

Walmart signed a long-term purchase agreement for nuclear power with energy provider Constellation as the world’s largest retailer seeks to provide clean energy to an expanding network of distribution centers.

Financial terms were not disclosed for the deal, calling for Constellation’s Dresden Clean Energy Center in Illinois to provide Walmart with 176 megawatts of “emissions-free electricity,” including 30 megawatts of future expanded generating capacity, according to a Tuesday statement from the companies. According to industry data, 176 megawatts would be enough to power about 70,000 homes continuously.

Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart will purchase energy through two 15-year terms beginning in 2029, including enough to power the retailer’s previously announced high-tech distribution center geared to perishable items that is in development in Belvidere, Illinois, the statement said. Walmart opened a similar facility last year in Wellford, South Carolina.

Working with Baltimore-based Constellation “allows us to support new operations in Illinois” in a way that “prioritizes affordable, reliable and clean energy for our business and the communities we serve,” said Shayne Wahlmeier, senior vice president of energy for Walmart U.S., in the statement.

Also Tuesday, Brookfield Asset Management said the U.S. Department of Energy has “conditionally committed” funding for $17.5 billion in loan facilities to construct up to 10 nuclear reactors planned nationwide by Westinghouse Electric, which is 51% owned by Brookfield and its institutional partners. Construction is planned to begin by 2030, with funding part of a larger federal effort to improve domestic energy supply chains, according to a Brookfield statement.

Oracle cuts jobs in AI push

Technology giant Oracle disclosed this week that it reduced its workforce by 21,000, or 13%, over the past year, joining multiple companies citing shifts to artificial intelligence.

“The adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce,” Austin, Texas-based Oracle said in an annual filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Oracle’s global workforce stood at 141,000 as of May. The company filing said Oracle spent $1.8 billion in severance and other costs related to restructuring during the past 12 months, well above the $374 million spent in the previous year.

U.S.-based technology companies announced 123,653 job cuts in the first five months of 2026, far above any other industry and up from 74,716 in the year-earlier period, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The outplacement firm said AI was cited most frequently among employers as a factor in workforce reductions.

Office attendance edges lower

Office attendance in 10 tracked regions averaged 55.2% of the pre-pandemic level for the week ended June 17, according to the latest Kastle Systems report. That was down from 56.5% in the prior week and ended a two-week string of increases but stayed close to the peak 56.9% posted most recently in the week ended March 4.

The security technology firm’s latest data showed Austin, Texas, still leading at 75.3% of its pre-pandemic traffic, with Dallas at 63.2%, New York at 62.1%, Houston at 58.2% and Chicago at 56.5%.

Based on anonymous keycard data from client property owners, Kastle tracks attendance at more than 2,600 office buildings housing 41,000 businesses nationwide. Average attendance has remained above 50% for most of the past year, excluding some holiday weeks and periods of severe weather affecting office turnout.

06/17/2026

How the nation's architects are using AI, robotic parking and new skylights

Architect Tarrah Beebe traveled to her industry's biggest trade show in the vacation spot of San Diego this past week, only to lock herself away for a full-day symposium on artificial intelligence. She says it paid off.

Beebe thinks AI can help her Los Angeles-based firm, KFA, catalog data from all 60 employees in a format everyone can access. That way, KFA won’t lose what its architects have accumulated when they leave the firm or retire.

“I think AI can help leverage the collective knowledge of the firm,” Beebe told CoStar News at this year’s American Institute of Architects conference.

About 5,000 architects and design professionals, as well as engineers, general contractors and developers, descended on the seaside city for four days of seminars, building tours and speeches from industry leaders at the AIA conference.

The AIA, based in Washington, D.C., warned those who flocked to the vacation spot of San Diego that things could get pretty wonky, saying in a statement: “Attendees will dive into the topics shaping the profession's future — from net zero energy and adaptive reuse in revitalizing downtowns to the growing role of AI and the push to design healthier buildings that strengthen communities.

Perhaps the most highly anticipated part of each year’s AIA conference is the Expo floor, where about 600 companies pitch their wares to architects and other industry players. The roster of Expo presenters includes providers of seemingly every possible type of building material or component imaginable.

From RCP Block & Brick in Lemon Grove, California, showing off its hardscape and masonry supplies to Englewood, Colorado-based Bobrick's changing tables for use in restrooms, the products on display ran the gamut of construction.

New skylight variations
One design technique becoming more common is an emphasis on natural light. Several companies on the AIA Expo floor focused on products that can help architects infuse more daylight into the buildings they design.

Solatube International, based in Vista, California, makes an acrylic skylight that filters natural light through an enclosure that’s similar to a prism. The light then flows through an aluminum tube to what looks like a normal lighting fixture in the ceiling. Solatube owns more than 60 patents on its tubular daylight device, which it sells through its SolaMaster and SkyVault product lines.

“It allows architects to get natural daylight further into the interior of the building, as opposed to windows, which only bring light to a seven or eight-foot space adjacent to a window,” Solatube President Francisco Lopez said.

An additional benefit of the tubular daylight device is that it requires only a small opening in a roof, as compared to a traditional skylight. The smaller opening means less heat is brought into a building’s interior, improving energy efficiency.

Solatube’s products have been installed in high-rise residential towers, offices, factories, schools, automobile and train tunnels and many more property types, Lopez said. One of Solatube’s latest projects was at Terminal 4 at Los Angeles International Airport.

Natural light is “absolutely critical for humans’ well-being,” KFA’s Beebe said. Her design portfolio includes work on offices, residential, hospitality and educational facilities and she said she tries to create designs to provide as much daylight as possible to interior spaces.

“For every room, we are thinking about the value and the quality of light that is going to come into the space,” Beebe said.

Smart windows, robotic garages
Among window makers, Beebe said she typically uses products made by Marvin Windows & Doors, VPI Quality Windows and Andersen Windows and Doors.

Several other vendors on the AIA Expo floor feature innovative window products.

Lake Forest, Illinois-based Kingspan Light & Air, for example, makes fiberglass-reinforced polymer walls that are translucent to allow light to flow to interior spaces. Solar Gard, based in San Diego, makes window films that obviate the need for blinds or shades.

Andersen, based in Bayport, Minnesota, makes two types of so-called smart windows. One of Andersen’s products, called SmartSun Glass, filters out 95% of ultraviolet rays, provides insulation for improved energy efficiency and doesn’t require blinds or shades to block bright sunlight.

Parking has emerged as an area of innovation for architectural products, too. Volley Automation, based in Denver, sells a robotic parking system where drivers pull into a garage and a robot-controlled elevator lifts the vehicle to its designated parking slot.

The system reduces the amount of space needed for a parking garage, allowing garages to be constructed in spaces that are constrained for space. Torxun, based in Tracy, California, developed a new type of parking-garage gate to replace traditional metal roll-up doors.

Architects who want to explore the possibilities of artificial intelligence also have plenty of places to look on the Expo floor. Spacial AI developed an AI-enabled software platform that allows architects, engineers and general contractors to collaborate earlier on projects.

The AI component of Spacial helps users identify and correct potential problems, shortening the time it takes for the production of documents that must be filed with local building permitting agencies.

Maor Greenberg, co-founder and CEO of Palo Alto, California-based Spacial, stressed that his company does not want to replace architects. Instead, Spacial’s AI platform can help architects better interpret and implement complex plans devised by the engineering firms who are their partners on major projects.

“Our main goal is to shorten the amount of time to get a project permitted and under construction,” Greenberg said. “That’s the best way to make projects more affordable.”

06/02/2026

Construction spending rises

U.S. spending on residential and nonresidential construction projects increased slightly in April from month-earlier and year-earlier levels, though development growth remained sluggish by historical standards for most types of construction in the early months of 2026.

The Commerce Department said April spending totaled just over $2.17 trillion, rising about 0.4% from March and beating the year-earlier level by 0.9%, according to seasonally adjusted annual figures. Residential construction increased 0.8% from the previous month and rose 1.7% from a year earlier, as nonresidential spending declined 0.2% for the month and fell 2.1% for the year.

Analysts at Associated General Contractors of America said highway construction has bolstered nonresidential spending for the past several months. The trade group noted manufacturing project spending dropped 18.5% from a year earlier, as office construction fell 5.5% and warehouse construction declined 1.6%.

Those declines were partly offset by a 28% annual rise for data center projects, a 6% increase for electric power projects and a 5.9% rise for retail construction, the contractor group said in a Monday statement.