Retail brokers, particularly those for big-box lifestyle nationals, are being courted by Fort Worth's favorite son and its retail resort teammate, General Growth Properties Inc. of Chicago, which could be drafted for extra duty as a plan unfolds for a minimum of three million sf of retail in the coming years.
The 1.6-million-sf Shops at Circle T, a 136-acre retail resort in Denton County, is no secret nor is the 230,000-sf Cabela's set to anchor Lone Star Crossing, a 980-acre development six miles west of the mall in Tarrant County--the common denominator is it's all Hillwood-owned land. What hasn't been widely discussed is periphery development on hundreds of acres for both projects and miles of undeveloped land along Interstate 35W, held in a land bank as Hillwood built out the countryside over the past decade with roughly 40,000 homes, 22 million sf of commercial product and the world's largest industrial airport in the 15,000-acre, multi-municipality AllianceTexas.
"Five years from now, we should have three million sf of retail within AllianceTexas in its 22 miles of freeway frontage," Darrell Lake, senior vice president of Hillwood Properties, tells GlobeSt.com. "It could be as much as four or five million sf."
Lake says the first wave of announcements will be made in two months for 900 acres of interstate-fronting land along Heritage Trace Parkway. The team's working on a large-scale, mixed-use plan with retail, office, high-density residential and tech flex product.
Within six months, Lake says Hillwood will be ready to air the rest of the Lone Star Crossing concept for a family-oriented, resort-type development of entertainment, including live-production theaters, and hospitality space. "If you could start Branson today and end up with a family destination spot that had something for all ages, that's what we'll be doing," Lake hints.
An agreement's not been formalized, but Lake says General Growth most likely will be tapped to help develop as much as one million sf of retail on 200 to 300 acres surrounding the Shops at Circle T, a $200-million retail trigger set to break ground in the fourth quarter.
Ross Perot Jr. and his Hillwood team have invested years into gaming out the retail plan. "We want the best quality of bigger boxes willing to go into high-quality shopping centers," Lake says. There are Wal-Marts rising in Hillwood country, but the land was bought from someone else.
Terry Syler, executive vice president for Dallas-based Retail Connection, says every category retailer is looking at Hillwood's project lineup. "We're on the frontline of the educational process for that trade area," he says. "We are looking for the beginning of a power center lineup that makes sense for our clients. And, we're looking at it right now...in all the categories that we have."
Syler predicts the critical mass will end up close to four million sf. "It's very similar to Grapevine (home to a 1.5-million-sf outlet mall and 1,511-room convention center hotel) just 10 years ago," he says. The main difference is Hillwood has stacked the deck with an employment base with 48 Fortune 500 companies to go along with rising rooftops of close to 10,000 per year, a pace predicted to hold at least four more years.
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