D-FW reports one of the strongest economies in the country, with stellar population and job and economic growth yet the retail market added less than 539,000 square feet of new space in 2022– about the size of a single power center during that category’s peak! Further, our record-high occupancy is during a time of record-low construction.

In fact, the entire DFW market currently benefits from its strongest retail market since Weitzman first started surveying shopping centers here in 1990.

As a result, Weitzman’s research shows that power center catgory today reports occupancy of approximately 95 percent, on par with the 95.2 percent posted by the healthiest category, grocery-anchored community centers. Since that low point in 2011, when 3.5 million square feet were dark, the power retail category has pivoted with a focus on non-power concepts ranging from grocery stores to gyms to restaurants. Right now, I’d have to say it’s optimistic. So what’s the outlook for these possibly dark box spaces in the current market? If Bed Bath & Beyond’s bankruptcy results in the closing of all of its stores here, the move will result in 15 DFW vacancies for a total of approximately 375,000 square feet.

Despite losing its major competitors and having the housewares category almost all to itself, the chain didn’t evolve in ways that met the needs of today’s shoppers and made a series of well-documented merchandising and other missteps. But some categories beat the odds: Barnes & Noble pivoted with a heavy focus on local reader profiles and a mix of small and large stores, and PetSmart brought in traffic with internet-resistent services like grooming, training and vet care.īut Bed Bath & Beyond, at least in its current form, didn’t beat the odds. But the “single-department” model with a narrow focus but deep selection often wasn’t nimble enough to survive the rise of e-commerce retailers, which offered “endless aisles” of merchandise selection in nearly every category. Power retail succeeded by taking shoppers’ favorite department store categories and super-sizing them.

Doctor Who by Alan Barnes