(The taxing authority might hold the property itself, or turn around and sell it to a third party, at market rates.)
For what it's worth, one of the specialised use-cases probably more likely to be encountered is large-volume food retail, a/k/a supermarkets or grocers. These have distinctive footprints, refrigeration, stocking capabilities, and the like. A few years ago the failure of a large regional grocery brand in the US resulted in numerous commercial vacancies of precisely this nature. There was some controversy when the successor to the chain held on to many of those parcels for years. There were still numerous vacancies at three years after final closing, several locations were demolished entirely, and the last property wasn't repurposed until six years after the original chain had failed. This despite pressure and desire to provide grocery services in the area. As the successor company was also a grocery chain (with operations in the area), stalling transfer of the properties was effectively a way of hamstringing their competition. The space wasn't easily converted to other uses (this happens, Sports Basement at the former Presidio PX in San Francisco is an example, a former A&P supermarket in NYC converted to a community center another), and food retailers hoping to expand had few other options. Notably, despite exploding vacancies in non-food retail, former strip-malls and shopping centres can't easily convert other retail space to groceries.
and isn't investing into a property that they then fail to rent out in a profitable manner also already a failure to act within their own limits?
The shops staying empty is one problem. The call for bailing out or helping in any way the creditors that took loans in bad faith by relying on that kind of help (to prop them up along the way) is another problem. I very much want to address the first problem, but not by enacting perverse incentive inducing rules. A better solution (in my view), which I think was mentioned in other comments, was to disallow tax reductions for unused spaces, and maybe even rise them above the tax level for what that space is when rented. In this case the landlord may be incentivized to find ways to make their spaces (at least) look busy (if not be busy with something of real value), which may be what the cities and community think of as an improvement.
"and isn't investing into a property that they then fail to rent out in a profitable manner also already a failure to act within their own limits?"
Yes, it is "already a failure", and it was the reason behind my initial objection. The bad decisions should meet their bad consequences. A "remedy" "to find ways to change the conditions of the loan so that building owners can continue to pay off their loan" sounds to me like a measure to shield decision makers from facing their failures. It is also, in the context of imminent failure, a call for someone else to hold the bag, which is in itself unfair.
