1 May 2026
Shopping center owners have begun looking for new ways to utilize space vacant due to falling demand: some are being converted and sold as apartments, Izvestia reports . For example, in Sochi, the Atrium shopping center has undergone a similar “modernization.” A 21- square-meter apartment is listed for sale there for 13.8 million rubles, while another is renting for 65,000 rubles per month. Similar offers are available at a shopping arcade on Navaginskaya Street. Similar cases are being reported in other regions: for example, apartments have gone up for sale on the roof of a business center in Yekaterinburg, as well as in one of the first shopping centers in Zelenogradsk.
Oleg Voitsehovsky, head of the Russian Council of Shopping Centers, called this part of a broader trend: due to a decline in the number of stores and Russians’ shift to cost-cutting measures, shopping centers are beginning to change their formats, turning to apartments. He cited KomsoMall in Yekaterinburg as an example. Alexey Dyakonov, a researcher at the Subtropical Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, also points to a nationwide trend that reflects a “deep structural crisis in the retail real estate segment.” “We are witnessing the beginning of a large-scale ‘conversion’ of commercial space, and this process will only gain momentum,” he predicts. According to his data, 66% of regional shopping centers required redesign by the end of 2025, and by the beginning of 2026, this share has grown to 71%.
Selling apartment space allows shopping center owners to quickly recoup some of their investments and reduce their debt burden, but it effectively irreversibly changes the property’s intended use, adds Dyakonov. In his view, even if the market improves, it will be impossible to return such space to the traditional retail real estate segment.
At the same time, Dyakonov considers the current situation “close to critical.” He noted that the share of vacant space in shopping centers is growing: in 2025, the vacancy rate was 6.2%, and in the first quarter of 2026, it was already 7.5%. In Moscow, the rate is higher at 9.7%, and in some districts, it reaches 16%. Traffic is also declining: in the first quarter of 2026, it decreased by 2% year-on-year, and by 25% compared to 2019. In the regions, a further decline of another 3-5% is expected in the spring, Dyakonov predicts.
According to Bulat Shakirov, President of the Union of Shopping Centers (USSC), approximately 10% of shopping centers in Russia will close or be repurposed in the next two to three years amid declining demand. Natalia Kermedchieva, Vice President of the SSC, noted that by 2025, 80% of shopping centers will have experienced a decline in traffic, and one in five will have experienced a 20% decline in turnover. This is compounded by the widespread closure of clothing , footwear, and accessories stores amid the exit of numerous brands and the decline in Russian purchasing power: according to the SSC, the share of space occupied by such stores has decreased by 10-15% in more than 200 of 800 shopping centers across Russia.
Who is supposed to buy those apartments with a dying population? And how can they be paid for with a population that’s becoming impoverished?
The women can buy them with the money they don’t receive when the husbands get killed in Ukraine. 😂
“A 21- square-meter apartment is listed for sale there for 13.8 million rubles, while another is renting for 65,000 rubles per month.”
My bathroom is bigger than that.