Comment by bluGill

> The other side of this is that landlords hate to reduce rent to rent vacant spaces because their paying tenants will demand rent reductions or move.

That too is a "it depends". For a failing mall, getting anyone into the empty spaces starts to become important to the other tenants because anything that draws people into the mall is a potential customer. Customers will even no shop you just because they know there is nothing else in the mall. Thus some malls near me have museums and the like inside - anything to get traffic.