Akron carries a modest CMBS book — $549M spread across 29 loans — and the filed record has begun to move. The distress rate reads 3.2% as of July 2026, and the direction is up. That is a small number on a small book, but the trend line is the story: what had been a quiet market is showing its first cracks in the servicer data. Median DSCR across the metro still sits at a comfortable 1.71, the kind of coverage that says most of this paper is paying as agreed even as the tally of trouble edges higher.
The timing pressure lands later this decade. The heaviest maturity load falls in 2029, at $104M — the single largest slug of paper coming due in the metro. For now the 2029 book shows no filed distress, but it is the year that concentrates the refinancing question, and desks watching Akron should mark it.
Beyond the loan tape, the on-the-ground signal is thin but not blank: three store closures over the past year, with no layoff notices filed. It is a small metro throwing off small numbers, but the same numbers all point the same way — a filed record that is rising off a low base.
Akron, OH shows a distinctly uneven distress picture: store closures are elevated, with 6 closures over the trailing year (2.14 per 100,000 jobs, ranked 70th of 392 metros by count and 155th by rate), while WARN layoff notices are quiet at 0 notices (ranked 313th of 386). Bank CRE over the noncurrent line reads $272.6mm (7.28% of allocated CRE, ranked 96th of 393 by count), which is not elevated, and securitized loans in special servicing sit at 2 rows (1.89% of the tape balance, ranked 66th of 335), also not elevated. Of the six pairwise comparisons, 0 show both sides elevated, 3 show both sides quiet, and 3 disagree — the disagreements all stem from store closures being hot while the other three legs read calm, suggesting tenant failures below the WARN filing floor and on buildings not held in this securitized tape, with no lender balance sheet yet reflecting the stress.
| Signal | Level | Rate | Rank by count | Rank by rate | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| store closures store closures per 100,000 jobs |
6 closures | 2.14 per 100k jobs | 70 of 392 | 155 of 392 | elevated trailing 365 days to today
|
| layoff notices (WARN) workers on layoff notices as a share of the metro's employment |
0 notices | 0% | 313 of 386 | 308 of 386 | quiet trailing 365 days to today
|
| bank CRE at lenders over the noncurrent line share of the CRE lent into this metro that sits at a lender over the blended-noncurrent line |
$272.6mm | 7.28% | 96 of 393 | 106 of 393 | quiet
allocated 2026-03-31
|
| securitized loans in special servicing share of the securitized balance read here that is in special servicing |
2 loan records | 1.89% | 66 of 335 | 94 of 335 | quiet
floor 2026-07-29
|
In Akron, OH, the elevated distress signal is closures, with 6 store closures over one year against 0 WARN notices. CRE-credit distress itself is largely unreadable: the securitized dollar figure is a FLOOR because it is measured over 50.0% of the metro’s 2 special-servicing rows (the rest carry no balance), making the securitized side invisible here. Bank-side data show $3.74bn in bank CRE, with 7.2% at risk at the 90th percentile, but distressed lender CRE is $272.6mm with 0 distressed banks and no material distressed dollars behind the signal — this is a real-economy signal (closures/layoffs) rather than a CRE-credit event. The reading on whether CRE credit has been hit is unavailable; the phase is "obscured," not quiet.
| Bank | Deposit share | CRE / Capital* | Room contributed | Noncurrent CRE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portage Community Bank OH | 100.0% | 128% total 232%
|
🔒 | 0.50% |
| Hometown Bank OH | 100.0% | 152% total 466%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Northwest Bank PA | 0.4% | 109% total 145%
|
🔒 | 1.53% |
| The Farmers National Bank Of Canfield OH | 1.7% | 198% total 285%
|
🔒 | 1.02% |
| Dollar Bank, Federal Savings Bank PA | 0.3% | 168% total 187%
|
🔒 | 0.42% |
| Civista Bank OH | 2.7% | 261% total 329%
|
🔒 | 0.63% |
| Consumers National Bank OH | 4.3% | 188% total 336%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Cfbank, National Association OH | 8.5% | 279% total 362%
|
🔒 | 0.53% |
| The Apple Creek Banking Company OH | 10.0% | 194% total 355%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| S&t Bank PA | 2.5% | 309% total 339%
|
🔒 | 0.24% |
| Bank | Total CRE | CRE / Capital* | Noncurrent CRE | Early Warning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portage Community Bank | $150M | 128% total 232%
|
0.50% | 🔒 |
| Hometown Bank | $104M | 152% total 466%
|
0.00% | 🔒 |
In Akron, OH, the CMBS wall maturing within 24 months stands at $149.5mm across 11 loans, against regional and community bank room of $141.8mm after committed draws — a wall-to-room ratio of 1.05, against 0.76 before committed draws are deducted. With 10 banks qualifying and 5 banks excluded here, and a distressed share of 3.7%, the data place Akron at 55 of 270 counting from the most strained, so the local bank footprint looks strained relative to the $549.3mm CMBS UPB; the caveats note the wall captures only the CMBS balance maturing within 24 months, and the room figure is a deposit-footprint proxy rather than a measurement of lending capacity.
Over the past 365 days in Akron, OH, the on-the-ground footprint has been defined almost entirely by store closures, of which there were 3. Layoff activity has been quiet: warn_notices came in at 0, with jobs_affected at 0 — though that jobs figure is a floor, since notices stating no headcount are counted but contribute 0 jobs. On the bankruptcy side, cre_bankruptcies reads 0, but note this is a STATE PROXY — bankruptcy filings carry the filer's state, not the property's location, so this counts CRE-likely filings in the states this metro's collateral sits in. It is not a metro-native count.