Small Town Retail Redevelopment

[Josh Anderson]

Hello BiggerPockets,

I have a general question or brainstorming activity I would like to pose to the community. Shopko's closure announcement back in January will leave roughly 70 buildings vacant in just SD, MN, NE, ND, and IA towns with less than 50k population (48 buildings in towns with less than 5k population). Without the demand for climate storage and another big box stores, and with multi-family redevelopment of these buildings likely being too expensive to be profitable, does anybody have any ideas (or better yet examples) on how to take advantage of this large onslaught of vacant space?  I do not own any of these commercial retail spaces that are going to be vacant, I'm just trying to brainstorm any potential ways to capitalize on potential opportunities.