The Greater Hartford retail real estate market stabilized with vacancies dropping from 11 to 10.1 percent during the past year, and West Hartford, Rocky Hill and Newington boast the region’s lowest vacancy rates.

The three communities all have vacancy rates below 5 percent, according to research by Burlington, Mass.-based real estate firm KeyPoint Partners. Windsor, East Hartford and New Britain have the highest vacancy rates in the region, all topping the 20-percent mark. The study spans 26 communities that contain 37.2 million square feet of retail space.

Retail development remains sparse in the region, with just 17,000 square feet of space added in the last year. But total occupancies rose by more than 350,000 square feet.

"In today’s environment, limiting new development should be regarded as a good thing," KeyPoint Partners Vice President of Research Robert Sheehan wrote in the company’s monthly newsletter. "Much of the existing vacancy needs to be filled or demolished before any substantial new retail space can be added to the region, and the region took considerable strides this year toward accomplishing just that."

The biggest gains occurred among storefronts ranging from 25,000 to 49,000 square feet, where vacancies declined from 12.2 percent to 6.7 percent. The segment benefited from such transactions as Grossman’s Bargain Outlet occupying part of a former Big Y supermarket in East Hartford and Harbor Freight, which moved into a portion of a former A & P grocery store in Berlin.

Family-owned clothing retailer Fallas, Dave & Buster’s and Grossman’s Bargain Outlet had the largest space expansion during the year, opening stores in Wethersfield, Manchester and East Hartford respectively.