Shoulda Gone Into the Grocery Store Business

Yesterday at Nick & Sam's on Maple Avenue, Weitzman Group held its annual Shopping Center Survey & Forecast luncheon, which GlobeSt.com reports was attended by a "standing-room-only crowd of more than 400 people" straining to hear how 2009 was shaping up for the Dallas-Fort Worth retail real estate market --...

By Robert Wilonsky

January 14, 2009

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Yesterday at Nick & Sam's on Maple Avenue, Weitzman Group held its annual Shopping Center Survey & Forecast luncheon, which GlobeSt.com reports was attended by a "standing-room-only crowd of more than 400 people" straining to hear how 2009 was shaping up for the Dallas-Fort Worth retail real estate market -- good, bad or flat-out fugly. So far, so-so, says this morning's recap, as developers apparently learned during the bust in the 1980s not to build without a good reason.

Says Weitzman's Bob Young, "We learned the hard way that it doesn't pay to build centers with little or no pre-leasing. New construction is demand-driven." Young also offered encouraging words for shopping centers anchored by grocery stores -- everyone's gotta eat, right? But beware the Big Box chain (except Wal-Mart). And restaurants.

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