New Construction and Rehabs Continue to Expand Footprint of Southeast Region
Small retail centers show strong growth
Southeast Michigan businesses gained about 20-million square feet of floor space during 2016. That’s according to a new report from the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. SEMCOG compiles data provided by area businesses and calculates annual growth in nonresidential construction and renovations. SEMCOG Planner, Janet Mocadlo, says the new data show retail space, especially smaller units, added the most square footage
“What we call white box development where you build speculative retail building and then you get tenants to go in, ya know like Potbelly, or ya know, smaller retail developments like that. So a lot of that happened throughout the region in a lot of communities, in-fill development” -Janet Mocadlo; SEMCOG
Retail related construction added about 3-million additional square feet across the region. Mocadlo says normally about 40% of the nonresidential construction is for industrial and warehouse distribution uses.
