The impact of COVID 19 on commercial property markets: Resilience and Optimisation of Retail Property locations in Leeds

The resilience capacities of commercial property markets and locations came to light with the market shock brought about by COVID-19 pandemic. The occurrence led to different property classes and locations responding ununiformly to the economic shock. As such, proceeds from investing and demanding (occupier and investment) of retail premises varies across locations. As property stakeholders continue to deal with the challenges influencing the demand and supply of retail properties, including, increasing vacancy rates, reduction in absorption rates and increasing store closures. It is important to have better understanding of how retail locations respond to the impact of COVID 19 (market shock) with a view of establishing retail location optimisation for better utilisation and management of urban resources. This study investigates resilience capacity (and reactions) of retail locations within sampled city (Leeds) with a view of developing optimum retail location model. The study explores and develop digital model that identifies, scores, classifies, and predicts optimum retail location base on resilience and performance of urban retail locations. The study adopts geospatial variables of rental value (at different dates) and accessibility metrics to grade performance and resilience index of retail locations before and after COVID 19. The study finds that a strong relationship exists between estimated retail location performance and the resilience index distribution of retail property locations in Leeds. That is, the market shock has high impact on retail property location after COVID-19 but less altercating impact on the prediction of commercial property location performance (as measured by rental value and accessibility). The result suggests that optimum localisation of retail property can be achieved viz-a-viz geospatial estimation of retail rental value through accessibility index. This pilot study calls on similar investigation on other urban settings to achieve comprehensiveness in modelling optimum retail location.