During a recent community meeting on a proposed Porters Neck shopping center, the discussion piqued one area resident’s curiosity as a business owner.

Garland Wall, owner of Primp Hair Salon, asked the developer about the leasing rate for other spaces in the planned Publix-anchored center, saying later that he wasn’t completely surprised to learn that they were expected to be more than $20 per square foot.

“They have been exponentially going up,” Wall said of leasing rates in general in the Wilmington area. “I think, as a business owner, everybody would like to see that price more around the likes of $18 per square foot.”

But in the case of the Porters Neck center, “I guess the square foot price is also going to dictate the higher-end shops that are going to be able to afford that,” said Wall, who declined to share what he pays to lease space for his salon in Progress Point, a retail and office complex at 1427 Military Cutoff Road.

As lease rates rise, the absorption rate for retail space has continued to increase in increments of nearly 20,000 square feet each quarter, according to third-quarter statistics from the Realtors Commercial Alliance of Southeastern North Carolina Multiple Listing Service. And while the overall average retail lease rate dipped to $13 in the second quarter, it bounced back up to $14.28 at the end of the third, the statistics show.

“Retail rates are going up because of the limited availability of retail space at shopping centers in the area,” said Nicholas Silivanch, a partner and vice president of retail at Eastern Carolinas Commercial Real Estate.

Grocery-anchored and power centers command higher rents, in the mid to upper teens and 20s, Silivanch said, but average gross sales per square foot are also higher in those locations.

He said he expects lease rates and the amount of space leased to remain on the rise, resulting in an ongoing need for new development to accommodate businesses.

“We are, right now, in recovery and into expansion,” Silivanch said.