Occupancy at Dallas-Fort Worth shopping centers is 89.1 percent and back to levels seen before the recession, real estate experts said Wednesday.
"We are now back to where we were five years ago," said Bob Young, managing director at The Weitzman Group in Dallas. "After some rough years, we're back to an occupancy rate above 89 percent."At the end of 2011, occupancy was 87.6 percent.Michelle Caplan, a Weitzman executive vice president, said: "I've been waiting for our market to recover from the hits we took in 2009 and 2010. We hoped it would happen in late 2010, but it didn't. Unfortunately, 2011 met the hard, harsh reality of a damaged housing market and continued high unemployment. But now both housing and jobs are coming back, and the retail market is too."Construction of retail projects helped the market improve, said Herb Weitzman, chairman and CEO.In 2012, the DFW market added 1.2 million square feet but leased 3.8 million square feet, Weitzman said. In 2009, by comparison, the market added 3 million square feet but leased only 596,000, he said.In Fort Worth, retailers leased 1.2 million square feet of new space last year, compared with 367,000 in 2011."We have a window of opportunity to fill up our existing centers before the next wave of construction," Weitzman said. "Our market has been so proactive with the recycling of all types of shopping centers. At no time in the past decade has the upside for older centers been better."Only four new shopping centers came on the market last year, including Premium Outlets in Grand Prairie. The Weitzman Group surveys 1,359 shopping centers in 42 submarkets totaling 186 million square feet.Sandra Baker, 817-390-7727Twitter: @SandraBakerFWSTHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
