What should commercial landlords do now?

Commercial landlords all over the world are having to face an unpleasant reality that shopping districts might never be the same again due to the pandemic.

In South Africa, shopping centre owners are having to work out how to plan in the face of continued uncertainty and changing retail habits.

"When the president announced the [pandemic crisis] in March, we could see the first impact was in the shopping centres," Jackie van Niekerk, chief operating officer for South African real estate investment and development firm Attacq told the BBC.

"Patrons were contracting [the virus], not visiting the malls and really being scared about what's the come... certainly in my career I've never experienced anything so uncertain."

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