ATLANTA (RETAIL & RESTAURANT FACILITY BUSINESS) – Big box vacancies can quickly erode the value of an entire shopping center. With AI, owners no longer have to rely on guesswork about what comes next. In one Florida redevelopment, analysis showed how an empty 82,000-square-foot anchor could be repositioned to generate nearly $770,000 in new NOI, adding $12 million in value and producing a first-year yield well above industry benchmarks.

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The Problem: Why Big Box Spaces Are Hard to Repurpose

Redeveloping these stores has always been costly and slow. AI is starting to change that by giving owners and developers faster ways to rethink these large spaces and plan for their next chapter.

Big box stores like Target, Walmart, or The Home Depot were designed for one thing: rows and rows of merchandise under a single roof. Their size and single-purpose layouts make them hard and costly to convert into anything else. Wide floors, endless concrete, and fluorescent lighting do not easily translate to housing, offices, or healthcare.

The size is only part of the problem. The infrastructure adds more roadblocks. Loading docks are built for trucks, not people. Parking lots are laid out for quick in-and-out shopping, not the steady flow of a clinic or the overnight needs of apartments. Oversized mechanical systems are tuned for retail, not classrooms, gyms, or housing.

The result is a property that is hard to lease and costly to reimagine, leaving owners and developers with a stubborn challenge.