Commercial leases are typically quite long; 10 years is quoted in the article.
Landlords don't want to be locked into a price for 10 years that could be a momentary downturn.
When you look at it at these time horizons, being vacant for 1 year and renting for your asking price is as good as giving someone a 10% discount to start a lease today.
I do think there should be a blight tax though to encourage real estate developers to find a short term use for the space.
Only big slow companies want long leases, and only big companies can afford the bloated rent. I don't agree that the root issues is the duration of the lease.
Not that price anchoring isn't real, and landlords are often shitty, but I doubt there are plenty of businesses interested in a short term lease for a 10% discount.
"Arleen Bowman Boutique" had a 10 year lease and wasn't exactly a big business, so I don't think that big businesses are the only ones who want long leases; I think your comment says more about the desirability of the real estate that people will deal with imperfect conditions to get a deep discount.
The space cost them $18k for the month (which is low, considering the area), and the only reason they got that price is because a big company backed out on their pop-up store deal.
Not because they have too much money, but because these tiny deals are probably a worse deal for them.
The policy responses for "landlords have too much money" and "landlords are acting rationally by leaving their lots vacant" are quite different.
99 cent stores, beauty supply stores, and Halloween supply stores work this way too - easy move in/out, generic and cheap merchandise used by a wide audience that doesn't want to buy online, and so they can take advantage of short-term leases.