If you’re looking for trouble, you can find plenty of it in shopping centers that have lost department stores or other tenants that occupy big chunks of space. Many local properties are still trying to bounce back from the liquidation of the Carson’s department store chain last year. While Sears has avoided that fate so far, the Hoffman Estates-based chain continues to shrink some stores and close others, recently deciding to shut down its store at Oakbrook Center.

But retailers that lease smaller spaces are doing just fine, said Lynne Brackett, first vice president in CBRE’s Oak Brook office.

“It’s hard to keep up with all the closures in the big-box category,” she said. But “there haven’t been many people going out of business in the small-shop” category.

CBRE does not break out vacancy figures for big-box and small-store space, she said. But the brokerage does compile geographical breakouts, which reflect economic disparities within the region: The south suburbs had the highest retail vacancy rate in the first quarter, 21.8 percent, while the north suburbs and northern part of the city tied for the lowest, 8 percent.

Landlords are trying to adapt to the rise of internet shopping, with many seeking to stabilize their properties with tenants less vulnerable to the e-commerce threat. Popular options include restaurants, fitness clubs, grocery stores and entertainment concepts, like indoor trampoline parks.

Some are going even further, redeveloping their properties with apartments or hotels. The owner of the struggling Prairie View Plaza shopping center in Morton Grove recently unveiled a proposal for the property that includes 250 apartments and a Flix Brewhouse, a craft-brewery-cum-movie-theater.

Landlords will need to stretch their creative talents because the pace of store closings is rapidly accelerating. Through April 18 retailers had announced plans to close 5,994 stores in the U.S. this year and plans to open 2,647, according to Coresight Research, a firm that tracks the retail market. That’s a big jump from 2018, when they closed 5,864 stores over the entire year, opening 3,239.

The Chicago market is in the midst of a shakeout that’s dividing retail properties in dense city or suburban markets from properties in less desirable locations. A vacant department store or Toys R Us in a Class B or C suburban shopping center might sit empty for a long time.

“I truly do think it’s a tale of two types,” said Derrick McGavic, managing principal at Newport Capital Partners, a Chicago-based investment firm that specializes in shopping centers. “To me the challenge in the larger-box space is fairly significant because there’s not a lot of prospective tenants to backfill.”

But he’s willing to accept the challenge—if it’s in the right place. Last month, Newport acquired a 161,000-square-foot vacant Carson’s store in Edens Plaza, a Wilmette shopping center it owns. The firm plans to redevelop the property, possibly with office space or a fitness center on its second floor.

CBRE’s Brackett doesn’t anticipate a big change either way in the local retail market over the next year. Yet the direction of the U.S. economy will play a big role in where the vacancy rate goes from here. To put the current 11.5 percent rate in a broader context, during the last economic boom, from 2005 to 2007, the local vacancy rate fell as low as 7.2 percent and never rose above 8 percent.

In the current expansion, the local vacancy rate fell as low as 8.6 percent in 2013 but has been hovering over 10 percent for the last two years. If the market can’t shake its malaise in a strong economy, what will happen when a recession comes?