Birmingham retail vacancies are climbing this year with little relief on the horizon.

The mid-year "Birmingham Retail Report" compiled by EGS Commercial Real Estate and Cushman & Wakefield found the Birmingham metro area had 30,000 square feet more space newly vacated than newly occupied in the first half of this year. That gave the metro area an overall occupancy rate of 88.5 percent at the mid-year point.

Store closings have been the biggest culprit. The report said that a quarter of a million square feet of retail space was emptied due to the closings of Bruno's, Goody's, Linen `N Things and Circuit City.

The western market in the metro area had the lowest occupancy rate with 82.7 percent at the mid-year point. The highest was the 91.7 percent in the central market, which includes Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook and Homewood.