"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 closely 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 really don't think it will affect us much here in Portland, because Portland kind of bucks the trend," says Barnard, whose company specializes in leasing shopping centers. "On a store-by-store basis, retail sales would probably reflect national trends as far as being flat or not having much growth, but as far as real estate, we have a limited amount of space we can develop, which forces properties to be renovated and upgraded and, quite 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/sf to $25/sf on a triple-net basis, where two years ago those deals would have been closer to $18/sf to $19/sf, says Barnard.