Headlines: Developing Downtown Retail; The Sights of Tour de Houston

Photo of Museum District Metro: Bill Barfield via Swamplot Flickr Pool

3 Comment

  • I have a really hard time believing that downtown can absorb another 350k sf of retail when there already is a ton of vacant or bad or poorly performing retail downtown.

  • Yeah, absorption is a function of rental rates. If you build it, they WILL come, however as Houston Pavilions should have taught us, that won’t necessarily mean that your development will recognize enough revenue to cover its note and prevent foreclosure.

  • This is a key problem with downtown retail in Houston. Because of a successful Class A office market, property is expensive. Thus developers and property owners have to get a high lease rate out of ground-level retail space, but there are few tenants who can justify paying that amount with the limited market potential downtown offers, especially for comparison / soft goods.