Eatertainment Concepts Head to Major Metros
Punch Bowl Social has leased 23,038 square feet of retail space in the Scarbrough Building, a historic office tower located at 522 Congress Ave. at 6th Street, for a new Austin-area location.
AUSTIN, TX—As the longtime home to the healthiest major-metro retail market in Texas, Austin maintains its strong position despite softening in its overall occupancy levels, according to a report by Weitzman. This strength can be attributed in part to the metro’s walkable appeal and retail-tainment concepts such as Punch Bowl Social.
This eclectic approach to the popular concept of eatertainment has leased 23,038 square feet of retail space in the Scarbrough Building, a historic office tower located at 522 Congress Ave. at 6th Street, for a new Austin-area location. Punch Bowl Social, with a location at Austin’s The Domain as well as in numerous US markets, combines a diner-inspired scratch-kitchen, craft beverages and classic parlor-style entertainment ranging from bowling to shuffleboard.
This downtown intersection has a dense pedestrian population of more than 21,000 in a one-mile radius. Additionally, more than 15 hotels with 6,000 rooms are also within walking distance.
Britt Morrison and Brett Maze with Weitzman handled lease negotiations as retail leasing agents for the Scarbrough Building’s street-level retail space. Perren Gasc with DBA Commercial Real Estate LLC and Dan Nesson of Denver-based True North represented Punch Bowl Social.
“Without a doubt, entertainment and experiential retail can work extremely well in dense trade areas with a mix of uses. Punch Bowl Social, with its focus on food and fun in an urban setting, will be a great addition to downtown Austin,” Maze tells GlobeSt.com. “Downtown not only has incredible population density, but the large number of offices, hotel rooms and events adds to the walkable retail dynamic of this location.”
As of year-end 2018, the Austin-area retail market shows an overall occupancy rate of approximately 95.8%, down from 96.1% at mid-year due to the store closings from outmoded legacy retailers, according to the Weitzman report. The firm reviews an Austin-area retail space inventory of 49.5 million in retail projects with 25,000 square feet or more.
The market’s largest vacancy spaces are found in big-box stores that closed due to the nationwide problems of legacy retailers Sears and Toys R Us. A truer picture of the health of the market can be seen in Austin-area retail projects which are maintaining some of the highest occupancy rates on record due
to steady tenant demand at a time when the construction of new retail space remains near record lows.
The vacancy also is mitigated by new construction that opened significantly leased, as well as the backfilling of existing space, all of which accounted for hundreds of thousands of square feet of occupancy in 2018. Even with the increase in vacant space, Austin remains the strongest major-metro retail market in Texas, and one of the strongest in the United States, in terms of occupancy, says the Weitzman report.
According to a recent CBRE report, similar vacant space is also an issue in DFW. Experiential and entertainment retail such as iFly, GlowZone, Punch Bowl Social and Alamo Drafthouse are backfilling a good portion of this space there as well.