Drew Alexander, president of Houston-based Weingarten Realty Investors also says that much of the vacant retail space in Houston may remain without tenants because of poor location and layout. Houston is also seeing a rapid expansion of the grocery sector, he adds, but a shake out is looming in that sector too.
"Overall, Houston retail seems to be in pretty good shape," says Alexander, a past president of the International Council of Shopping Centers. "Overall retail occupancy is only about 88%, but when you take out the properties that were built in the early 1990s, retail occupancy is around 92%. Those centers that should never have been built skew the occupancy statistics."
Most of the Houston shopping centers that have remained vacant over the years lack tenants because of fundamental flaws, Alexander said in an interview with GlobeSt.com. "There are still a number of poorly conceived properties that were built in early 80s - some perpendicular to the street, many in the middle of the block, a few with nightmarish architecture - and those centers are naturally harder to lease, so they remain vacant."
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