You're absolutley right. Nationwide commercial vacancies are rising and while rents are falling, zero rental income is still a loss to landlords.
It's not your locale, it's nationwide and global save for industrial cities in India and China.
In my area, they are still putting up commerical buildings and strip malls like crazy. Problem is that even the ones completed over a year ago are 1/2 to 1/4 vacant. Sure sign that there is too much liquidity in the system. We have a borrow and spend economy without regard to future consequences -- as long as the illusion can be kept alive another day. You know who will eventually be stuck bailing out all the lenders don't you? The bankers and builders are going to make billions and the taxpayer will end up cleaning up the mess. Remember the S&L scandals? Same exact pattern. Things got so out of hand during that fleecing, that they had to actually bulldoze entire subdivisions that didn't have, not had any hope of ever having buyers. Yikes. We never learn.
Richard W.