Vacant Spaces
The global property business tries to adapt to e-commerce
Many retail properties will slump but others have brighter prospects
Dec 14th 2017 | NEWYORK
FIFTH AVENUE in NewYork is the most expensive stretch of retail property in the world, now festooned with lights in the approach to Christmas. The pavements heave with crowds eager to see the diamonds sparkling at Tiffany & Co, a jeweller, and festive displays at Saks Fifth Avenue, a department store. But storefronts further downtown in once-thriving shopping districts remain vacant.
( slump: to decrease suddenly and by a large amount
紐約第五大道的店鋪是全球最貴的零售店鋪铁瞒！好想去玩
festoon: to cover or decorate something with many small objects, pieces of paper, etc.)
The global retail property business is having to adapt as consumers spend more online.Consolidation is in vogue.On December 12th two retail property companies, France’s Unibail-Rodamco and Australia’s Westfield, agreed to merge in a deal worth $24.7bn to form the world’s second-biggest owner of shopping malls by market value. Westfield earns about 70% of its revenues from property holdings in America.
In November, Brookfield Property Partners, another mall owner, bid $14.8bn for the 66% of GGP, a rival, that it did not already own. Two activist investors, Third Point and Elliott Management, took stakes in two others. They are among several investors to recognise that change is hastening, as many retail properties labour and others discover brighter prospects.
( consolidate: to join or combine together into one thing
vogue: something that is fashionable or popular in a particular time and place
Westfield 是澳洲老牌零售商腻脏，在新西蘭也很多mall)
Location, as ever, is key. In France and the Netherlands, as elsewhere, retail properties in smaller cities are struggling while those in big ones thrive. Well-known thoroughfares can attract luxury-goods firms that like having flagship stores to advertise their brand. One example is New Bond Street in London, which is booming. Rents jumped by 34% in the year to June, according to Cushman &Wakefield, a property-services firm. But even prominent streets in some places are experiencing a correction in prices. In Hong Kong rents in shopping hubs have slipped along with rates of visitors from mainland China.
( thoroughfare: a main road
商圈主路經(jīng)常都吸引奢侈品牌進駐，開旗艦店來宣傳品牌拇砰。所以這些位置好的商圈租金還在不斷地漲食铐，但還是有一些商圈盡管位置很好匕垫，價格還是有在調(diào)整。香港的商圈租金就因為來自大陸的游客多少而變動）
In America, which has about five times as much mall space per person as Britain, “there is a huge bifurcation”, says Todd Caruso of CBRE, a brokerage.Some areas and certain types of properties are expected to fare well and others to slump. Atlanta and Orlando are among the cities particularly saturated with stores, with only paltry levels of disposable income and retail sales, according to Green Street Advisors, a property research firm. These will probably see more shop closures. Enclosed malls are usually filled with department stores such as Macy’s and other clothes retailers that are all closing outlets. But strip malls, which have shops connected by a car park, often have a supermarket, so are less susceptible to e-commerce—most Americans still buy food in person, at least for now.
（bifurcate: to divide into two parts
there is a huge bifurcation: 兩極分化嚴重
susceptible: easily affected, influenced, or harmed by something
那些有停車場虐呻，有大型超市連著的商場受到電子商務(wù)的影響比較小象泵，畢竟現(xiàn)在很多人還是開車去超市買食物，暫時來看是這樣斟叼，亞馬遜和沃爾瑪在電商生鮮市場的競爭偶惠，發(fā)展起來的話，那商場就真的不太好過了
上一期的一篇文章講這兩個公司的競爭朗涩，點擊閱讀）
What will happen to retail properties as stores shut is on the minds of city authorities.Other types of companies may fill vacant space in larger cities. In October Hudson’sBay, a retailer, said it would sell its Lord & Taylor department-store building on Fifth Avenue to WeWork, a shared-office firm, for $850m. Mall owners hope to find new tenants from service industries such as restaurants and gyms. Retailers such as Bonobos that once sold clothes only online are opening more shops.
Bigger groups are better placed to spend on the best malls and sell others. Unibail-Rodamco’s plan for its American shopping malls is to“focus on improving them, ride out the storm and see where we go from there,”said the company’s chief financial officer this week. GGP in October announced an agreement to add flats to a mall in Seattle; Sandeep Mathrani, GGP’s boss, wants to make retail centres into“mini cities”. Other property companies face more of a challenge. CBL Properties, for instance, owns malls in smaller American cities that have less shopping traffic. CBL’s share price has fallen by more than 50% this year, making it harder to invest and turn around ailing spaces.
（大零售商可以集中火力發(fā)展好的商圈忽孽，賣掉表現(xiàn)欠佳的，但是一些經(jīng)營著小城市小地方商場的零售商來說就比較難了谢床，這些商圈人流量較小兄一。所以一個公司的戰(zhàn)略發(fā)展是非常重要的，一步走錯就整個大船很難掉頭）
As the property market evolves, at least one type of investor can be unequivocally cheerful. Vacancies for industrial real estate, including e-commerce warehouses, are at their lowest rate in three decades. Prologis, the biggest owner globally of such property, has seen its share price jump by nearly 20% this year, while other property firms’ value has remained flat.
（unequivocally: very strong and clear: not showing or allowing any doubt. unequivocal evidence
電商公司辦公室识腿，廠房倉庫的租金都在歷史最低水平出革，無疑對于他們來說，這是一件可以捂著嘴偷笑的事情）
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Results
Lexile?Measure: 1200L - 1300L
Mean Sentence Length: 17.06
Mean Log Word Frequency: 3.08
Word Count: 614
這篇文章的藍思值是在1200-1300L渡讼， 適合英語專業(yè)大三的水平學習骂束，應(yīng)該是經(jīng)濟學人里屬于普通難度费薄。
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