Minneapolis-St. Paul Retail Market Report

Vacancy compresses in nearly every submarket. Historically low unemployment and above-average consumer spending backed strong positive absorption in each of the last four quarters ending in June, totaling over 1.3 million square feet — the largest amount in that span since 2016-2017. Heightened leasing during this period resulted in strong year-over-year vacancy compression in most of the metro's submarkets. Locales experiencing significant vacancy drops consisted of Maple Grove, Southdale, St. Paul and West St. Paul, all of which had triple-digit declines year-over-year in the second quarter. Of these submarkets, Maple Grove is the only one to have lower than pre-pandemic vacancy, irrespective of its noteworthy construction pace, with local inventory increasing by 0.5 percent.