He says there remains pent-up demand, and it doesn't help that some retailers who have gone out of business are continuing to pay rent on vacant space that could be put to more productive use. "It's tough to lease space if no one's returning phone calls," he says.

That upbeat scenario carries into the Southwest and Northwest. While retail sags elsewhere, that's simply not the case in Texas, reports Southwest bureau chief Connie Gore. "Austin is under-retailed," Charlie Northington, a principal in Trammell Crow Co.'s Austin retail division, tells GlobeSt.com. Sister cities of Dallas-Ft. Worth and Houston have 50% more grocery stores per capita than Austin, which is luring retailers to the fold despite rents that in some areas are fetching $27 per sf to $35 per sf. Northington anticipates a 15% to 20% growth, or another one million sf, for each of the next three years, in a market that's already home to 23 million sf of multi-tenant retail space.

In the DFW region, retail has spiked to its highest level in 15 years for a market bearing more than 133.2 million sf, according to a Weitzman Group report. Some 8.7 million sf of new multi-tenant construction was delivered last year, with overall market occupancy riding above 90%.

Portland continues to attract interest and activity, albeit more cautious interest and activity, heads of local retail brokerage operations tell Northwest bureau chief Brian K. Miller. The reason is the same as always: an urban growth boundary that keeps supply relatively lower and demand relatively higher, and no sales tax, which draws additional shoppers across the Columbia River from southwest Washington.

"In spite of what we hear, activity remains extremely strong," says Mark New of New & Neville Real Estate Services, one of the more productive retail brokerages in the city. "National retailers are continuing to look for sites--more than we have available--but everybody is looking close and hard at the numbers, and people are less likely to overpay or hit the top of the market."

Craig Barnard, president of Barnard Commercial Real Estate, also is optimistic. "I don't think it will affect us much here in Portland, because Portland kind of bucks the trend," he says. "On a store-by-store basis, retail sales would probably reflect national trends as far as being flat. But, in terms of real estate, we have a limited amount of space we can develop, which forces properties to be renovated and upgraded. Frankly, there are a number of national retailers just circling and waiting for a spot to land because there aren't locations available."

The limited availabilities have kept rental rates rising steadily for the last couple of years, says Barnard. Smaller shops in newer centers are paying anywhere from $22 per sf to $25 per foot on a triple-net basis, where two years ago those deals would have been closer to $19.

The recession won't sink all boats equally, suggests Southeast bureau chief Alex Finkelstein. While the mom-and-pops might feel the pinch, neighborhood retail centers will do just fine, he reports.

John M. Crossman, senior vice president, director of retail services in the Orlando office of Trammell Crow Co., says a typical neighborhood center needs about 10,000 residents in a trade area to support it. The Economic Development Commission of Mid-Florida Inc. estimates 1,300 new residents move to Central Florida each week.

"This means that Central Florida has the demand for a new neighborhood shopping center approximately every eight weeks," Crossman tells GlobeSt.com. "As long as new residents move in, we will have the demand for new grocery stores."

Given the state of the economy and the current retail shakeout, not all sectors support this much confidence, and caution is still the underlying theme. As Sandy Sigal, CEO and co-chairman for Tarzana, CA-based-Newmark Merrill, tells Patricia Kirk, "We're staying away from tenant groups that are trendy or require discretionary spending. We're investing only in properties that are not dependent on housing growth, which suffers in the receding tide of a turndown."