Empty storefronts become ads

Marketers are taking advantage of empty retail spaces by leasing them
at cut-rate prices and covering them with ads. The store windows of
empty spaces around the city have been covered with ads for companies including Intel,
Nestea and Snickers. The advertisers pay only 10 to 15 percent of
what a retailer would, said William Walther, president of Granite Companies Asset Management, which owns several buildings in Manhattan. Nationwide, the retail vacancy rate rose to 11.2 percent
during the first quarter of the year, the highest it has been since the
early 1990s, according to CBRE Econometric Advisors.