HOUSTON—Call it The Woodlands Effect. Nearly every panelist (and likely most in the room) at RealShare Houston on Tuesday marveled at the successful development, located north of the CBD.

“It's really the gold standard,” said Ryan McCord, president, McCord Development, during the third panel discussion, “Houston Development: What's In the Pipeline?”

“[The Woodlands' developer] George Mitchell was a genius,” said Paul Layne, executive vice president, master-planned communities, The Howard Hughes Corp. “The way he structured things within the invisible walls of The Woodlands is just brilliant.”

Meanwhile, Layne's own Hughes Landing, a 66-acre mixed-use development, is currently unveiling in phases in The Woodlands. On Thursday, the company announced the opening of more retail; Whole Foods Market opened there last month. An under-construction residential component, whose median age is 54, stands at 30 percent pre-leased.

As far as other submarkets, many on the panel agreed with Jeremy Garner, principal at Trammell Crow Co., who said the area is like “a tale of two cities.”

“It's an education process, from submarket to submarket,” he said. “Not every one is the same.”

Michael Wyatt, managing director of CORE Real Estate LLC, offered a cautionary tale of his own, citing a recent development whose list of prospective tenants started at 20-plus and dwindled down to two.

Finally, moderator Derek Hargrove, associate director, national retail group at Marcus & Millichap, shifted the discussion to the price of land. With the city lacking any semblance of zoning, it's a concern. A lot of sectors are “competing for the same areas,” said Garner.

“As a developer, land is the one thing we can control,” he said. “Deciding how much we're going to pay…or not.”