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Gas prices, the mortgage crisis and a plunge in consumer confidence may be wreaking havoc with commercial development across the country, but it has yet to fully catch up with retail plazas and lifestyle centers in the Attleboro-Foxboro area.

Leasing of stores and restaurants at the region's booming new retail complexes are unabated, despite growing retail bankruptcies and caution on the part of major chains, developers say. But some drag has begun to show up with cancellation of shopping plaza leases and a stretching out of some projects by smaller developers.

In the meantime, vacancy rates remain relatively stable despite a marked decline in sales of business property across the Bay State, according to the latest figures.

Local town planners and building inspectors say they've seen a slowdown mostly with smaller builders and individual projects seeking to conserve money by stretching out the construction process.

"We've had some people ask for extensions on their building permits," said Attleboro Building Inspector Doug Semple, who added that was consistent with a slowdown in economic activity. However, he said he has yet to see builders or developers suspending or walking away from a project entirely.

The most conspicuous exception has been a condominium project on West Street, where two large apartment buildings arise from a gravelly lot flanking an unfinished foundation designed for a third building.

Semple said he's tried to contact the owner about correcting problems with unfinished manholes and exterior wiring, but letters have been returned as undeliverable.

In Mansfield, Town Planner Shaun Burke said construction activity has been unexpectedly brisk this summer, although two smaller shopping plazas near the recently opened Mansfield Crossing shopping center have been slow to get off the ground.

Mansfield Crossing, a larger project featuring anchor stores LL Bean and Borders, along with specialty retailers flanking a pond, is 99 percent leased, said David Fleming of S.R. Weiner and Associates, the property's developer.

The company is looking for two restaurant clients to occupy a detached location in the plaza and another site.

"Our tenants are doing quite well," said Fleming, who added that while tenants such as LL Bean are capable of drawing customers from long distances, the center's trading area consists mainly of close-in suburbs like Foxboro, Sharon, Walpole, Attleboro and North Attleboro.

Despite skyrocketing gas prices, the short travel distances haven't discouraged nearby shoppers from visiting.

Similarly, Patriot Place, a much larger "lifestyle center" drawing luster from the New England Patriots' Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, has continued to announce major new tenants, including a CBS theme restaurant.

The center already hosts a huge Bass Pro Shops, a National Amusements Cinema Deluxe and an expanding array of national retailers and is anticipating the addition of a hotel. Nevertheless, a contraction in retail development across Massachusetts and the Northeast is under way, said Bob Sheehan, vice president for research at Keypoint Partners, which tracks commercial development in New England.

"Some projects are getting delayed, if not crossed off altogether," said Sheehan, who noted that developers of an upscale 600,000-square-foot shopping development in Nashua, N.H., recently were granted a one-year extension to compete the project.

The announcement comes as a deteriorating economy takes an increasing toll on retailers nationally.

Store closures in the United States this year are expected to rise by 7 percent over last year, to 144,000, according to new projections by the International Council of Shopping Centers. That's the largest jump in 14 years.

The apparel sector accounted for the largest portion of this year's closure announcements.

The gloomy reports come as a hoped-for bounce in retail sales linked to the government's economic stimulus checks failed to materialize.

Sales nationwide rose by just 0.1 percent in June, the slowest pace in four months, the Commerce Department reported. Excluding slumping auto sales, which dropped to a two-year low, core sales rose by 0.8 percent.

Sheehan said traditional department stores and some luxury goods retailers have been hit hardest by the slowdown in consumer spending, while discounters have tended to do somewhat better.

Increased caution among retail chains to commit to new locations in light of the recessionary trend may mean developers will have to make rent concessions to gain tenants, he said.

Kelly Coates of Carpionato Development said evidence of a pullback by major retailers isn't hard to find.

Starbucks, which has been retrenching, has already canceled four stores with his company. Up to 12,000 Starbucks workers are expected to lose their jobs as the firm begins closing 600 U.S. stores this summer.

Some industry experts said fortuitous timing explains at least in part why the area's major retail developments have continued to flourish despite the ongoing economic downturn.

"These projects (like Patriot Place) were already well along in getting commitments from retailers when things really started to turn sour," one source said. "From a retailer's perspective, it was like being eight months pregnant. There's no way to turn back."

Investors may be less sanguine about the future, however, according to the most recent commercial real estate sales statistics.

The sale of land for retail, office, industrial and other business projects in Massachusetts ground almost to a halt in the second quarter, according to Real Capital Analytics, a New York City-based clearinghouse for real estate statistics and information.

According to the figures, sales of industrial and commercial real estate of $5 million or more totaled just $697 million for the quarter, compared with $3.4 billion in the same quarter last year.

Spending for retail property amounted to a scant $69 million, compared with $529 million in the second quarter of 2007.

In Attleboro, a city-owned industrial business park under construction has already lost one of its only two committed tenants and may lose the second because of high construction costs and delays.

And in Norfolk last week, an auction of the former Southwood Hospital property - 88.5 acres appraised by the town at $15 million - failed to attract an opening bid of $10 million. The most the auctioneer was able to coax from developers was $2 million.

That was far below the actual value of the land and was not nearly enough to satisfy the owner, Caritas Christi Health Care. Officials acknowledged there are environmental concerns about the property, but said the economy was probably largely to blame for the unenthusiastic response.

Meanwhile, despite slumping sales, vacancy rates for retail and industrial lease properties remain relatively stable, according to the latest reports.

Retail vacancies in Eastern Massachusetts increased only 0.1 percent over last year in a survey conducted in May by Keypoint Partners.

A survey conducted by commercial real estate brokers Cushman and Wakefield showed a slight increase in industrial vacancies in southern Massachusetts, from 9.4 percent to 10.4 percent over 2007.

However, the increase was the lowest vacancy rate reported in all of the Boston and Worcester areas.