www.REBusinessOnline.com March 2024 • Volume 20, Issue 1 SMALL CITIES, BIG AMBITIONS Many municipalities in Texas are revamping their downtown areas to support growth, recruit new businesses and make better use of well-located older buildings. E By Taylor Williams promise the historic charm or tranquility that many residents of these cities value. Revitalizing a downtown area — bring-ing in new businesses, adaptively reus-ing older buildings, creating pedestrian-friendly networks — is a primary means of marrying those objectives. When a successful downtown revital-ization program is executed, the benefi ts tend to have a domino effect. Elevated foot traffi c boosts sales at local business-es, increasing asset values over time and stimulating sales of properties. Other in-vestors take note of the viable business plan, and the rest becomes history. But the whole process often starts with the visions of local business owners and the willingness of local leaders to provide the services and incentives needed to make those visions reality. In this piece, we examine the econom-ic development efforts that a number of municipalities throughout the state are putting forth to stimulate and accommo-date growth, while also preserving the abstract and lifestyle elements that have historically defi ned their communities. levels of border crossings among visi-tors. An emphasis on promoting local history and culture underpins the larger movement. As such, the city will debut its new arts, cultural and entertainment cen-ter this summer, offering painting and sculpture exhibitions, theater perfor-mances and other communal events for residents and visitors alike. A restoration project is also underway at one of Edinburg’s historic theaters. According to Raudel Garza, Edinburg’s executive director of economic devel-opment, the restoration of this historic building “revitalizes downtown Ed-inburg’s cultural identity, providing SEE EDCs page 18 conomic development is, in many ways, the business of facilitat-ing growth. Yet in Texas, thanks to an array of business-and develop-ment-friendly policies and laws, in-fl uxes of jobs, people and new real estate projects to support them some-times seem to just happen naturally. When this kind of heavy growth is sustained over time, it can lead to less-affordable housing, more cookie-cutter retail scenes and heavier conges-tion and pressure on local infrastructure. But it is possible for smaller munici-palities to embrace job and population growth with new real estate uses and projects in ways that don’t entirely com-Edinburg Located in the Rio Grande Valley and sporting a population in excess of 100,000, Edinburg’s downtown revital-ization caters to both its naturally grow-ing resident population and elevated MACROECONOMIC, INSTITUTIONAL OBSTACLES HINDER RETAIL SUPPLY GROWTH IN AUSTIN But high occupancy continues to sustain rent growth. By Taylor Williams he Austin retail market is in dire need of more quality space, but betweenzzz newfound volatility in the U.S. capital markets and longstand-ing local policies that have hamstrung commercial developers in the state cap-ital, delivering that space is no easy feat. The city’s remarkable growth sto-ry is well-documented. Big Tech has made Austin its home away from home, spearheading what was a 33 percent increase in population be-tween 2010 and 2020, according to the Austin Chamber of Commerce. T But the paces of growth of hous-ing and infrastructure — two crucial prerequisites for retail development — haven’t kept up with the surging head count. In addition, the Austin bureaucracy is notorious for slow-moving entitlement and permitting processes, at least in the eyes of Texas developers who have done business in zone-free Houston or certain munici-palities of Dallas-Fort Worth that make it a point to fast-track new projects. These issues at the local level have merged with debt market disruption GBT Realty is developing The Shops at The Brick & Mortar District, a 42,000-square-foot, grocery-anchored retail center in the southern Austin suburb of Kyle. The center will be located within a master-planned community with more than 2,500 residential units. SEE AUSTIN page 22 INSIDE THIS ISSUE A Look to the East: Georgia Offers Prototypes for New Mixed-Use Projects page 15 Houston Owners, Brokers Break Down Growth Drivers, Macreconomic Factors pages 16-17
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