Natalie Rankin, who owns the Sun Kiss tanning salon and oxygen bar in Rocklin's Blue Oaks Town Center, can look out her shop window and see Mervyns department store across the parking lot. The view gives her little comfort.

The entire Mervyns chain is going out of business in the coming weeks. The same is true for another Blue Oaks tenant, Shoe Pavilion. Rankin, whose corner of Blue Oaks is already pockmarked with vacant storefronts, says business is OK, but she worries about declining customer traffic.

"Who knows what's next?" she said.

Already struggling, Sacramento's commercial real estate market is getting hammered by a fresh wave of retailer bankruptcies, including Mervyns, Linens 'n Things and Shoe Pavilion.

Mervyns' demise is the most damaging. It will leave nine gaping holes representing roughly 720,000 square feet in shopping centers throughout the region when the department store chain closes sometime after the December holidays.

Garrick Brown, research director at commercial broker Colliers International's Sacramento division, said the vacancy rate in the region's major shopping centers rose to 8.8 percent in the third quarter, up from 7.6 percent in the second quarter. It was 6.7 percent in the first quarter.

By the first quarter of 2009, when Mervyns closures and others take effect, the vacancy rate will top 10 percent, he said. He said the vacancy rate at the smallest strip centers, with fewer than 50,000 square feet, will be considerably higher.

"Mervyns' demise quickens the shakeout in the Sacramento retail property market and, in the short term, creates a little panic for landlords and tenants," said Heath Kastner, a vice president with commercial broker CB Richard Ellis. "The Sacramento area right now is in a tough spot for retail. A lot more people are closing their doors compared to new businesses opening."

More problems could be ahead. Circuit City Stores, which operates five stores in the greater Sacramento area, is considering the shutdown of at least 150 stores, according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal. The troubled company wouldn't comment in detail but told the Journal that it's conducting a "comprehensive review" of its operations.

Circuit City operates about 1,500 stores in the United States and Canada.

As it is, the increase in vacancies has slowed the pace of new construction in the region. Target Corp. is scrapping plans to build a store at Sacramento's Westfield Downtown Plaza and to build a larger store at its Broadway location. The biggest example is in Elk Grove, where construction of a long-awaited regional shopping mall, the Promenade, has been pushed back again. The latest timetable delays the opening by a year, to the fall of 2010.

But other projects are going forward, including the $240 million expansion of the Westfield Galleria mall in Roseville, which is nearing completion.

Kastner and other experts say eventually the retail sector will turn around. Retail space is becoming more affordable, and merchants who had been locked out of the market in pricier times will give Sacramento a second look, especially in the better locations, said David Bugatto, president of Sacramento retail developer Alleghany Properties LLC.

For instance, Dick's Sporting Goods, a growing national retailer based in Pennsylvania, is "a strong candidate" for one or more of the Mervyns sites, said Bob Nolasco, a senior vice president at Grubb & Ellis real estate in Roseville. Nolasco represents Dick's in the region.

"There are still extremely good retailers in the economy that continue to get stronger," Nolasco said. "When somebody like Mervyns falls out, they pick up their locations."

But with the area's unemployment rate at 7.4 percent and the economy worsening, it's unlikely that vacant sites will fill up quickly. Brown said the disappearance of home equity has wiped out a crucial source of seed money for would-be Mom and Pop retailers and restaurant owners.

"We just don't have start-ups coming into the pipeline," Brown said.

Call The Bee's Dale Kasler, (916) 321-1066.