TORONTO – Store owners might be having a harder time finding rental property as the amount of retail space under construction in major Canadian markets dropped to its lowest level in a decade.
Commercial real estate firm JLL says retail construction starts amounted to 1.5 million square feet in the first half of this year.
That was down from 2.7 million square feet a year prior and 5.3 million square feet in the first half of 2016.
The previous low during the decade came in 2023, when retail construction starts totalled 1.9 million square feet.
JLL’s senior vice-president of retail Paul Ferreira attributes the drop in starts to rising building costs, redevelopment of existing retail space and the cancellation of some residential projects that would have had stores on the ground floor.
Ferreira says the decrease means retailers wanting to grow are finding it more challenging to rent space and are having to increasingly adapt their plans to work in the fewer new locations out there.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 2, 2026.
