Shopping Centers Are Fast Becoming The Dinosaurs Of Retail, Just Ask Intu

There’s nothing sadder than the sight of an abandoned shopping center. I recall growing up in Bournemouth and for a six year old, it was a treat to visit The Hampshire Centre, the area’s only shopping center at the time. It has since been demolished. So much hope and optimism captured in one place, but while for years we’ve known that the model on which they are built has been under threat, it’s taken the COVID-19 coronavirus to both highlight and accelerate their demise. And this trend isn’t about to be reversed. Travelling to an indoor place, full of other people, is not something which now feels in any way natural to us. Quite the opposite in fact. Intu Properties, which runs seventeen shopping centers in the U.K., is in deep financial trouble with debts of £4.3 billion. However, they were not in a great financial position before the outbreak of the virus, which has compounded their problems with retail tenants now refusing to pay rent. Read more at Forbes.