DFW Community Center Sales Climb After Renovations

DALLAS—Lake Highlands Village, located at located at 9090 Skillman St. at the intersection with Audelia, incorporates three buildings totaling 100,000 square feet. A Dallas-based limited partnership, JAH Realty LP, recently acquired the Tom Thumb shadow-anchored community center and office project for an undisclosed purchase price.

The purchaser acquired the property as a value-add investment, and plans renovations and re-merchandising for the 50,000-square-foot retail building, which is currently 50% occupied. Current concepts in the project’s retail space include the UPS Store, plus several restaurants, services and medical users, among others. New ownership is also working on plans for the office portion of the project, which is vacant.

Lake Highlands Village benefits from its location in a high-traffic corridor and a dense trade area with approximately 168,000 people within a three-mile radius. The center also benefits from a daytime population of more than 184,000 within the radius, thanks to its location along the Interstate-635 commercial corridor.

“The acquisition is a long-term investment in one of the best submarkets in Dallas, Lake Highlands,” Graham Irvine of JAH tells GlobeSt.com. “Lake Highlands has been recognized as one of the most desirable school districts in the Dallas area, and the submarket continues to improve year after year. Given our adjacent ownership of the Tom Thumb center, we wanted to control the entire quadrant along Skillman from Royal to Audelia.”

William Rosatti at JAH Realty will oversee the leasing of the project, which is being re-branded. Derek Schuster and Kevin Butkus with Weitzman handled negotiations on behalf of the seller.

Community centers total nearly 76 million square feet of retail space in DFW, the largest in terms of gross leasable area, according to Weitzman’s latest report. Today, community centers have occupancy of 94%, thanks to net leasing of 482,000 square feet in 2019.

The market welcomed a handful of new grocery-anchored community retail and mixed-use centers last year. These grocers are growing market share and improving sales through remodeling stores, much like Lake Highlands Village has planned.

One of these key remodels is the Tom Thumb at Arlington’s Fielder Plaza, which was more than a remodel. It was the action required to keep a store open.

Moreover, the use of location intelligence showed how the store could attract customers from nearby high-end neighborhoods. This ability to better understand the customer has re-energized retail, says Weitzman.

With the support of the city of Arlington, the Fielder Plaza renovation was completed last fall, along with a roll-out of a complete digital package. The two improvements have resulted in climbing sales for the center.