Building Blocks

According to an annual survey conducted by Shopping Center World magazine (Atlanta), there were 86 million square feet of retail space under construction (both interior and shell) at the end of 2001, just 7.5 percent less than the 93 million square feet under construction at the end of 2000.

“That's not a significant drop-off given all of the challenges faced by the retail industry in 2001,” said the magazine's editor in chief, Ben Johnson.

As of March 31, 2002, there were 89 million square feet of space under construction.

Once again, Wal-Mart Stores (Bentonville, Ark.), Target Corp. (Minneapolis) and The Home Depot (Atlanta) were the most active retailers, continuing last year's trend of building more stores across the country than most other retailers.

Fisher Development Inc. (San Francisco) was the leading retail contractors of interior space, producing a total of 5.8 million square feet in the past 12 months. Following were R.A.S. Builders Inc. (Englewood, Colo.) with 5.6 million square feet and CSI Construction Co. (Colorado Springs, Colo.) with 4.7 million square feet.

The Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. (Baltimore) has the most space currently under construction: 9.8 million square feet. R.A.S. Builders has 5.5 million square feet going and Vratsinas Construction Co. (Little Rock, Ark.) has 5 million.

The rankings were compiled from data collected from the 64 retail contractors that participated in Shopping Center World's Top Contractors Survey.