AND WHAT ABOUT THE RIVER OAKS SHOPPING CENTER? His company’s stock down more than 70 percent since last year and the 2009 calendar wiped clean of all new development projects, Weingarten Realty president and CEO Drew Alexander tells analysts and investors the REIT is gonna survive. “The key to the survival? An increase in cash on the balance sheet and a continued ‘focus on tenants that sell basic goods and services,’ Alexander commented. Those tenants include grocery stores, dry cleaners, quick-serve restaurants and value chains such as Ross, Marshall’s and TJ Maxx.” [Globe St.]
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Maybe Mr. Alexander could solicit such basic needs tenants for the River Oaks Shopping Center; perhaps a local bakery and a quick-serve restaurant like the Black-Eyed Pea, for example?
Makes sense. Even if the demand for expansion is there (and there are many places it is still in Houston), it’s hard to move forward when financing isn’t available.
Building cash on hand while operating existing properties is the best focus in moving forward.
A lot of developers are ready to move forward with new projects (commercial and residential), but most don’t operate with cash on hand and must move forward with financing. With financing so tight right now for businesses, projects will get stalled and or never started.
Don’t be fooled by Weingarten’s genteel attitude towards their holdings. They have just as much debt as everyone else, and rely on the same sunny projections about occupancy to cover debt service as every other over-leveraged developer-property manager.
Weingarten was smart long time ago when it catered to quality and sought input from the locals before building or acquiring property. Now the executives live in their upscale Woodlands suburban homes, lost touch with reality, and use Wall Street’s “make money via box-store template business model”.
Weingarten did not build the River Oaks Shopping Center. The Tanglewood Corporation did, or at least its founder, Mr. Farrington who developed Tanglewood, the Post Oak Shopping Center and many other Houston projects.
To clarify, Mr. Farrington built the most tasteful part of the River Oaks Shopping Center, the part that houses Mandola’s and the center directly across the street. I am not 100% certain of the others.
Weingarten Realty = Teh Suck.
Well,thank God, because the one thing we need more of in Houston are dry cleaners and Marshall’s. I mean, I have three dry cleaners within two blocks of me, but I need one in my driveway too!
A couple of comments-First, wasn’t one of the tenants supposed to be a Barnes & Noble or Bookstop? Second, I miss the convenience of 3 Brothers Bakery and the Black Eyed Pea. Not every meal out has to be upscale; sometimes you just want some meat loaf.
Maybe there’s a rationale for a third Starbucks…
Lost all respect for Weingarten. I drive by ROC every day and looking at the travesty of the new Barnes & Noble “wing” makes me furious, literally. After ripping apart one of the most significant developments in the state, they replace it with mediocre suburban crap that looks like it belongs in Sugarland or the Woodlands. Slate? Blue? Arches? A hodgepodge of strip center crap. The architects, I uses the term loosely, of this “improvement” should be ashamed of themselves. Weingarten has no shame. If they go bankrupt and out of business, I will dance in the street.
I completely agree with John. Here you have an architecturally recognized center and practically the only place left that hasn’t added faux adornments and all that rot until
now.The new building is now cream color instead of stark white. It adds slate that has no correlation to anything except perhaps some nearby townhome’s upstairs balcony and basically looks like the tacky Victorian bevelled glass front door that your Aunt Fern replaced on her pseudo Mies van der Rohe modern. The handwriting is on the wall folks–kiss the center as we know it goodbye.
What? How dare you be critical of the design. Have you seen the graceful curve that so elegantly plays tribute to the building it is replacing? Have you seen the way the massive parking garage is now a focal feature? Lest we forget about the vacant wine porch extending out towards the street! (sarcasm alert)
“Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has revised its outlook for Weingarten Realty Investors to negative from stable over concerns about the company’s near-term debt maturities.” Houston Business Journal, http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2009/03/30/daily48.html?ana=from_rss
John, I totally agree. That new wing is an abomination: Out of scale, hideous, and lacking any charm. It really ruins the corner. I was driving by there the other day and noticed how stark that wing looked from the rest of that area.
It’s almost as bad as the suburban Costo on Richmond.
We were sorry to have to leave the River Oaks Shopping Center and miss our clientele from the area. We are getting ready to have our soft opening at our 4036 S. Braeswood Blvd (77025)store after being damaged from Ike. Please come see us and reintroduce yourselves. Please help us show everyone the importance of our local businesses and that we can survive in this time of “big boxes” and corporate chains. We are so excited to see everyone again and would love to see you as well. Sign up for news of our reopening at http://www.3brothersbakery.com. See you soon! Have a sweet day! The Jucker Family