MARKET INSIGHT · JUNE 2026
By Ken Schuckman · President & CEO, Schuckman Realty Inc.
Every few years a new retail trend captures the headlines and convinces owners that the rules have changed. They never change as much as the noise suggests. On Long Island, the single most durable truth in our market is this: the supermarket-anchored shopping center remains the most resilient, most financeable, and most consistently leasable asset class we transact. When capital gets nervous, it comes home to groceries.
Why groceries anchor everything
A supermarket is not just a tenant. It is a traffic engine that brings shoppers to a center one to three times a week, recession or not. People defer a new sofa, a vacation, or a wardrobe refresh long before they defer dinner. That weekly necessity-based footfall is what underwrites the in-line tenants around the grocer, from the nail salon to the QSR to the dry cleaner, and it is why grocery-anchored centers have posted the lowest vacancy and the steadiest rent growth of any retail format through every cycle of the past two decades.
The Long Island supply story
Long Island is one of the most supply-constrained retail markets in the country. Entitlement is slow, developable land is scarce, and almost no new grocery-anchored centers are being built. That scarcity is the landlord’s best friend. With virtually no new competitive supply coming online and grocers actively seeking footprints in dense, high-income trade areas, existing well-located centers enjoy pricing power that owners in fast-growing Sun Belt markets can only envy.
What this means for owners
Owner takeaway: If you hold a grocery-anchored center on Long Island, you are sitting on one of the most defensible cash flows in commercial real estate. The strategic moves that compound that advantage are protecting and extending the anchor lease, curating service and necessity tenants around it, and resisting the temptation to over-rotate into whatever discretionary concept is hot this quarter. Defensive cash flow is what gets rewarded when you refinance or sell.
How we can help
Schuckman Realty has specialized in supermarket-anchored shopping centers since 1978. We see the grocery lease comps, the expansion plans of the active operators, and the investor bid for grocery-anchored product in real time. If you are evaluating an acquisition, a re-anchoring, or a sale, we welcome the conversation.
SOURCES
JLL — “Grocery-Anchored Retail: The Resilient Core of the Retail Sector”
CBRE — “U.S. Retail Real Estate Outlook 2026”
ICSC — “The Role of Grocery in Shaping Shopping Center Performance”
Cushman & Wakefield — “Marketbeat: U.S. Shopping Center Q1 2026”