LONDON — Nobody in Liverpool was surprised when Debenhams, the UK department store operator, crashed late last year. When the chain announced the closure of its remaining 124 stores, including the 185K SF unit in Grosvenor’s Liverpool One shopping district, landlords like the ducal Grosvenor empire resolved to move on. “It is something we have been preparing for,” Grosvenor said in a statement. Talks with potential alternative users stepped up a gear, that’s all. The fate of Debenhams, and with it the loss of 24,000 jobs nationwide, dramatized the tectonic shifts wrought by the coronavirus pandemic during 2020. What an awful year, people tell themselves; thankfully it's over. But beware of a mental trick, one humans often play on themselves. Placing the economic pain in 2020 makes it possible to tell ourselves that 2021 will be the year of recovery. The more pain we locate in the past, the more justifiable it becomes to believe that 2021 will be the year in which everyone, including the property industry, builds back better. But what if that’s not right? Read the full story here. | 
