Wal-Mart pulled out of Exit 80. The Auburn Mall’s newest anchor, Steve & Barry’s, is closing. For a brief, shining moment, Auburn was slated to get a Panera Bread, a Hallmark store and the state’s first Moe’s Southwest Grill. Didn’t happen.

And of course, there’s still no Target or Olive Garden.

But Lewiston-Auburn could have fared a whole lot worse this year.

While other cities are losing their Circuit Citys and Linens ‘n Things, Maine’s first Tractor Supply Company is still scheduled to break ground in Lewiston in February. The Marriott Residence Inn is slated to open in Auburn in March.

And – you might want to sit down for this – there’s an unconfirmed report of a dollar store coming to New Auburn.

OK, so maybe no one’s about to swoon over another dollar store. But it’s possible new retail in an economy that’s in a tailspin.

For 2008, that’s about as good as it gets.

“Has there been a retail sector in the last 12 months? I didn’t get the memo if there’s still stuff going on,” joked Team Fletcher/Millett Realty broker Kevin Fletcher.

Like L-A’s year, Fletcher’s year has been mixed. Planet Fitness is moving into one of his Center Street buildings and he has a letter-of-intent from a retailer for a spot at 600 Turner Street, the development just south of the Auburn Mall that’s half taken up with occupants or commitments. But of those at 600 Turner, two of the four are office-based businesses, because retailers aren’t expanding.

“Guess what? They didn’t come. So what do you do? You know, you take what you can get,” Fletcher said.

With consumer sales here falling 3.2 percent year-to-date, L-A has fared a little worse than Portland, Brunswick and Augusta, according to state tax figures.

As 2009 nears with no clear economic relief in sight, some area brokers, developers and commercial real estate experts are cautiously optimistic about a relatively quick rebound. Others think retail – both locally and nationally – will get worse before it gets better.

Many are just happy to say goodbye to 2008.

“How things go this year isn’t really the story. I think it’s really, ‘Where’s it going to go next year?'” said Craig Young at CBRE/The Boulos Company. “This year is over.”

So what is happening?

If it’s the kind of retailer you can’t live without – drug stores, grocery stores and even fast-food places – there’s activity, said developer John Gendron. “They’re still very, very active in the marketplace.”

Like developer George Schott, Gendron has deals in the works he can’t talk about yet. Schott, who owns the Auburn Mall, is taking the loss of his new anchor in stride. At least now, he figures, he has a nicely refurbished 60,000-square-foot space that’s ready for immediate occupancy by a new tenant.

“It is encouraging that right now I am talking with several (retailers), which I hadn’t been all year. … The more solvent ones are now starting to go back to thinking of doing something but nothing in writing, nothing even in a letter of intent at the moment. But hopefully everything flies,” Schott said.

Schott is also the developer behind the upcoming Marriott Residence Inn in Auburn. Greg Mitchell, who works as a consultant with Schott, said the Marriott name is going to be a draw once it opens.

“It’s been an incredible run of quality retail investment out at the Auburn Mall area. It’s come faster than I think anybody would have expected,” he said. Before this year, the activity and amount of construction, nearly $40 million over three years, “is really nothing short of phenomenal.”

Famous Footwear and Petco both opened this year beside Kohl’s at the Mt. Auburn Avenue plaza. Briefly this summer, that plaza’s developer, S.R. Weiner, listed a site map with a string of new buildings slated for the Kohl’s parking lot: Panera, Hallmark, Moe’s.

No word on what happened to those negotiations, but that site map is now wiped clean and open for potential tenants.

In the greater mall area, now that the city’s finished the roundabouts, there’s room for 500,000 square feet of new retail.

“We have pad-ready sites that are going to fill up,” said Auburn economic development chief Roland Miller. On a recent tour of the Wal-Mart distribution center, he says the manager told him: “We’ve got the top-performing Wal-Mart in the region. We’re no. 1.”

That sort of success gets retail followers in its wake, Miller said.

Lincoln Jeffers, Lewiston economic development head, believes the 20,000-square-foot tractor store on outer Lisbon Street will do really well.

“It’s sort of the old general store writ large. That was really where we anticipated the second or third phase of retail going” after initial development at exit 80, he said.

And yes, he still thinks eventually, that spot will pop.

Predictions

So what does 2009 hold?

The future’s murky.

Fletcher has a letter-of-intent from a retailer that wants to take 4,000 square feet on Turner Street. While the deal looks solid, it isn’t done yet, and Fletcher declined to name the retailer until it’s final.

And then there’s the possible dollar store in New Auburn.

Miller said he can’t confirm rumors that the store is going in the old bowling alley on Main Street. But he did say there are potential investors and a proposed tenant, and the city council has OK’d the use of some of the city-owned abutting land for parking.

“We expect it to happen any minute,” he said.

Despite the lack of this-is-definitely-coming-in-2009 – or maybe because of it – area experts have their own opinions about the next year.

Some predictions are dire.

“Next year is going to be a very trying year for anybody who’s involved in retail in any aspect. It’s going to be very trying and difficult,” Schott said. “I think it could be horrendous.”

The cautiously optimistic view:

“In general, America’s still strong, and in general Americans are still strong people, and in general at some point we’re going to rally and say we’ve had enough and get out of it,” Fletcher said. “Whether or not I can tell you it’s going to be spring/summer of ’09 or it’s going to be later in ’09, you’ll start to see an uptick in ’09.”

Others don’t know what to think.

“I’ve never gone through a situation like this. I think most of us in our generation have not. I think it’s something you’ve kind of got to work through,” Young said. “Uncertainty is the key factor today.”

Still, there’s one thing most agree on: Part of the future is clearly out of L-A’s hands.

Steve & Barry’s didn’t fold in Auburn because Auburn did something wrong. It folded everywhere.

The same could be said of Wal-Mart’s loss at exit 80. Ultimately, the chain was growing and sales weren’t.

“Wall Street said, ‘Wal-Mart, you need to be more selective, more careful in your expanding,'” Jeffers said.

One possible positive sign: Ron Adamian got his first nibble of the year in October. The Massachusetts businessman owns 83 acres that border Maine Turnpike exit 75 in Auburn.

Resilient. Horrendous. Uptickish. Come what may, 2009 awaits.