Chart of the Day: 2.5 million sqft of retail space to be developed until 2019

The new spaces are poised to benefit from recovering demand and rents.

This chart from Edmund Tie & Company (ET&Co) shows that around 2.5 million sqft of retail space is in the pipeline. Most of it will be completed from Q2 to Q4 2018 and in 2019.

After rents suffered weakness from the rise of e-commerce, monthly islandwide first-storey retail rents improved by 0.4% QoQ to $29.35 psf in Q2 2018. This is the second consecutive QoQ increase since Q1 2018. "There are signs that retail rents have bottomed out," ET&Co said.

Demand for retail was positive at the back of the growth in visitor arrivals and tourism receipts, the firm added. Retail spaces are poised to benefit from this as various high-end brands from overseas have expanded into Singapore.

"Moving forward, more retail stores will incorporate technology into their operations to focus on experiential shopping," ET&Co said. "They will continue to adopt an omnichannel strategy to capture a greater market share. These strategies are necessary to maintain their foothold in the industry."

Additionally, more landlords are introducing a shop, live and work concept to their malls through more new-to-market brands and co-working spaces and lifestyle concepts.