Historically, retail real estate suffers only after a housing industry drought is well under way.

With rents dropping, refinancing deadlines looming and empty storefronts piling up, retail landlords in the Tampa Bay area are now braced for the big flush.

A few fresh sprigs of stability may be popping up around Florida's consumer-driven economy, but spending remains beleaguered at best. And the retail development industry has yet to atone for overbuilding fueled by the same easy credit Wall Street provided for the now-imploded housing boom.

That includes hotels, plants and office buildings built for growth that never arrived. But in Florida, where critics regard the strip mall as a tawdry icon of the state's landscape, nobody builds farther ahead of demand than retail developers.

For decades, experts claimed the nation had twice as much retail space as the population needed. Florida's West Coast, in particular, stands out, with more than double the retail space as the national average in some counties.

Nationally developers have outfitted every American with 28 square feet of retail space. Around Tampa Bay, where developers say they need extra space for the tourists, it ranges from 44 square feet per person in Hillsborough and Pasco counties to 54.7 square feet in Pinellas. In stagnant one-time hot growth markets like Manatee County, it's a stunning 73 square feet person. (See chart)

The retail shakeout is not over. Grant Thornton's retail consulting arm estimates 10,000 chain stores across the country will close this year, almost twice as many as 2008 when chains ranging from Circuit City to Sharper Image to Linens n' Things and Sound Advice closed for good.

Thrift stores are mentioned among the likely candidates to replace them. And regional malls are keeping storefronts occupied with tenants once regarded as undesirable: no-name stores like Treasures/Gifts in Westfield Countryside, Fighter Warehouse (for Ultimate Fighting Championship gear) in Westfield Brandon and Two Extreme Tattoos in University Mall in Tampa.

Overall, the numbers don't look that bad. The vacancy rate across the Tampa Bay area had risen to 9 percent in August. The average rent was down 4.8 percent since January. But averages can be deceiving.

"There are pockets of strength like downtown Tampa and Westshore, but we have areas where vacancies are quickly pushing north of 20 percent," said Brynn Merrey, Tampa regional director for Marcus & Millichap. "The vacancy rate can be an illusion, because so many centers have tenants who aren't current on rent or not paying at all."

It has become a downward spiral propelled by more than decreased consumer spending. In retail complexes, many current leases automatically come up for renegotiation if a big name retail tenant like Linens n' Things or Circuit City leaves. Not only do replacement stores demand discounts, so do the ones that stay.

Buyers of distressed retail space have descended, eager to find desperate owners. But offers now are often deflated again by fear that rental rates specified in existing leases cannot be sustained.

Some local firms that specialize in developing shopping centers adapted to the dramatically changed market. The 2007 construction pipeline included 17 million square feet of new retail space in the bay area, Lakeland and Sarasota - enough to fill 16 regional malls. This year's retail pipeline contains only 2.3 million square feet.

Many firms laid off development staff and beefed up leasing and property managers. Some have marketed themselves as managers of distressed property, in the expectation that lenders will be foreclosing on more centers like they did at St. Petersburg's BayWalk, and then hiring a receiver to run them.

The final fix can be conversion to another use like the former Circuit City in Citrus County converted to a medical clinic. Nationally, 63 churches, 244 medical facilities and 172 schools moved into retail space in just the second quarter of 2009, according to CoStar Group, a research firm. In the 5300 block of Ulmerton Road in Largo, an abandoned Wendy's fast food drive-through is being rebuilt as a law office for Hebert Law Group.

"A lot these empty boxes have no future in retailing," said Suzanne Chen, president of Retail Real Estate, a Tampa firm that specializes in re-fitting warehouse-size stores for another life.

After holding off foreclosure, some lenders are starting to turn up the heat as bottom-feeding buyers strike deals below the value of outstanding loans.

One sign of the spurt: appraisals on investment property ordered from Colliers Arnold doubled in July.

"Valuing retail property suddenly has become very complicated," said Lee Arnold, chief executive of the Clearwater brokerage. "The deals we're seeing are going to set new comparable prices for sales this fall at anywhere from 20 to 70 percent of loan value."

Some of the weaker spots are south Pinellas County and the Gateway area where retail rents dropped 17 to 27 percent, respectively, since January. Adding to the vacancy rate are two more abandoned Kmarts on U.S. 19 and three more vacant Publix stores in Pinellas Park, South Pasadena and Seminole. A Publix departure often triggers automatic lower rent clauses for stores left to survive without a center's big drawing card.

A lot of the space glut can be traced to dated, obsolete shopping centers as more Pinellas residents cross the bay to Tampa for their serious shopping. Westshore, a regional crossroads of freeways, has been a beneficiary as the dominant regional shopping spot with two almost fully leased regional malls and three dozen destination restaurants not found elsewhere in the market. Pinellas County officials in 2007 estimated Pinellas shoppers spend $1.3 billion a year shopping in Hillsborough, money that once was spent closer to home.

Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or (727)-893-8252.