WEITZMAN OUTLINES STRENGTHS IN D/FW RETAIL MARKET 

DALLAS—Dallas/Fort Worth’s retail market is much more than a collection of buildings and stores; it’s a national phenomenon, one that keeps getting bigger and better.

By the end of this year, retailer demand will result in 4 million square feet of brand-new space. In fact, during this decade alone, our market has added more than 35 million square feet of space. 

That means that, in just over six years, we’ve added more space than you can find in the entire retail market in San Antonio, one of the 10 largest cities in the U.S.

And that retail space is being added because the demand is there.  Even with the flood of new space, our market’s occupancy rate has remained in the healthy range around 90 percent. 

D/FW ranks as one of the most important targets for retailers’ expansion plans for several reasons, all of them positive. These include:

·         Population growth: D/FW’s population of 5.8 million now is expected to increase to 6.5 within four years.

·       Housing growth: During this decade, D/FW has added more than 35,000 single-family houses every single year. For 2007, a year when housing construction is dropping, we’re still on track to add 38,000 houses.

·      Incomes: The average household income in D/FW is around $75,000 annually.

·       Job growth: D/FW consistently ranks as one of the top job-generating markets in the country, and this year will be no exception. We expect to see around 85,000-90,000 net new jobs, which is phenomenal growth.

Retailers come to this market because they get results. Wal-Mart, for example, is adding nearly a million square feet of new stores this year. Those stores are responding to the exceptional growth in markets like McKinney and Frisco, which rank among the fastest-growing communities in the nation.

Other big retailers that are adding stores include JCPenney, Belk, Kohl’s, SuperTarget, Lowe’s and many more. These new stores include locations in new-growth markets like North Fort Worth, as well as key locations in built-out markets like Central Dallas, Richardson and Plano.

Another new-growth market, Cedar Hill, will become home to D/FW’s newest mall next year. Uptown Village at Cedar Hill, which will employ the popular open-air format, will open with Dillard’s, Macy’s, Barnes & Noble and many others next spring.

But it’s not just the new-growth markets and new shopping centers that are enjoying the focus of retailers. For example, one of Wal-Mart’s new stores will be at Centerville and LBJ in a trade area that first came to prominence about 40 years ago.

And in markets like Richardson, Whole Foods and a slew of other retailers are benefiting from a surge in renovations at projects like Dal-Rich Village and Richardson Heights. Renovations are a key tool that developers use to ensure that great real estate continues to perform up to its full potential.

I’ve been active in the D/FW retail market for more than 40 years. Each year seems to have a theme. One year it would be malls, another it would be power centers. But the current D/FW market is so exciting because the activity covers so many bases. There are new malls, big mixed-use projects, renovations, specialty retail, discount retailers, power centers – you name it, it’s happening in D/FW.

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