15,250-SF Center Brings Final Element to Colony Tract

It's the right location and right product despite the need to keep community center development in check, David Wilson, Cencor's development partner, tells GlobeSt.com. The 15,250-sf project abuts a Home Depot and Wendy's and is bringing a 2,700-sf RadioShack and 1,000-sf American Title to the Dallas suburb's northeast corner of the intersection of Paige and Texas 121.

Wilson's optimistic that pre-leasing will fill the project, situated in a market with about 3.3 million sf of inventory and a 94.4% occupancy. "We've got a nice pipeline for a number of deals working," he says. The Weitzman Group's David Sacher and Scott Rose are lining up the Colony tenants for a mid-2002 delivery.

Hallback-Deitz of Dallas designed the project, where site work has just begun by general contractor Village Interiors. A group of local investors, NEC Paige/121 Ltd., owns the project.

The bustling Colony's retail sector is well above the region's 91% overall average, which made a 1% gain from 2000's close. Its construction comes at a time when developers are pulling back on larger projects, according to Weitzman.

Community and power centers are well-positioned for another year of growth. They accounted for 75% of last year's five million sf of absorption. Plano led the pack with 1.5 million sf; Northeast Tarrant County, 831,000 sf; Northeast Dallas, 460,000 sf; Arlington, 431,000 sf; and Garland, 314,000 sf. "Fortunately, most of it was pre-leased," Herb Weitzman said at a recent forecast.

Malls accounted for 27% of the 2001 new product, but 2002 won't be a repeat performance, says Weitzman. Power centers pulled 14% of last year's overall building and the big draw, neighborhood centers, 65%.

Freestanding and big boxes as center anchors, where there is moderate amount of inline space, kept occupancy healthy, according to Weitzman. Still, anchor losses at Six Flags Mall in Arlington and North Hills Mall in North Richland Hills have cast a pall over their futures. Both are looking to reposition the retail space with entertainment-theme concepts. "Their days as traditional malls are over," concludes Weitzman.

The upside to the annual report is that 24 of 34 retail submarkets ended the year above 90%. Except for malls, all center types showed gains in 2001. Neighborhood centers came in at 88.5%, up 1.5% from the prior year while community centers had an overall occupancy of 92%. Power center occupancy showed a marginal increase to 94% and malls dipped a point to 89.8, largely due to anchor hits taken by North Hills Mall, Six Flags Mall and Southwest Center Mall in South Dallas.

The DFW region continues to lead the nation in its per capital accounting, 34 sf has been added for every new resident since 1990, taking the current DFW average to 26.1 sf in comparison to 15 sf nationwide. In the last 11 years, some 44 million sf of new retail space came to market to boost the total inventory to 139 million sf.