First Street Analysis: Flood Threat to Commercial RE

SAN FRANCISCO – A new report from First Street Foundation and global engineering and consulting firm Arup looks at the risk to communities from flooding. Previous First Street studies provided flood risk data for individual homeowners – it creates the “risk from flooding” for realtor.com home listing – and the latest report offers an assessment of flood-related risks on the commercial market.

The report, “The 4th National Risk Assessment: Climbing Commercial Closures,” assesses the risk of flood damage to 3.6 million retail, office, and multi-unit residential properties across the United States. It analyzes economic impacts over the next 30 years as climate change increases. It looks at impacts by metropolitan area, including lost days of productivity and output caused by damage to retail and office buildings, as well as associated closures due to repair times.

First Street says its report “provides investors, business owners, financial institutions and economists with crucial data on the extent of flood risk to commercial and multi-unit residential properties, and helps to quantify economic loss associated with that risk in ways not previously possible.”

Key findings

• 729,699 U.S. retail, office and multi-unit residential properties face a risk of flood damage
• The annual costs to repair or replace damaged buildings could grow by roughly 25% – from $13.5 billion in 2022 to over $16.9 billion – by 2052 due to climate change
• Flood damage to commercial buildings could result in 3.1 million days of lost business operation in 2022 due to repairs, growing to 4 million days by 2051
• Commercial damage has consequences for metropolitan areas and states. The annualized financial impact to local economies is expected to grow by 26.5% from $49.9 billion in 2022 to $63.1 billion in 2052

“Business needs consistency and predictability in order to plan, invest and grow their operations and allow communities to thrive,” says Matthew Eby, founder and executive director of First Street Foundation. “In partnership with Arup, we are demonstrating that American businesses and local economies face much more uncertainty and unpredictability … on their bottom line than they may realize. Flooding that leads to lost days of operation and lengthy repair times … could have significant broader national and even global economic consequences.”

The report aggregates property-level data at the metro and state level. Additional data, including the future flood risk to individual properties, can be accessed from First Street Foundation and more detailed risk analysis can also be requested.

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