Welcome to the Deep Dive in a world Just a Wash with information. Our mission is simple. Cut through the noise, stack up the sources, and pull out the most important insights for you. Today we’re taking a deep dive into the commercial real estate landscape, looking at news from August 21st to the 29th, 2025.

We’ll be digging into some surprising developments in retail, key economic signs, and really focusing on the incredible momentum right here in Texas, especially in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. Okay, let’s unpack this a bit. Our goal give you a shortcut to being genuinely well informed, especially if you’re, navigating the DFW retail scene.

We’re gonna explore whether those rumors about retail dying off were maybe greatly exaggerated, and what that really means for investment and growth right here in our backyard. So many people had pretty much written off malls predicting the slow, inevitable decline, but now we’re seeing some genuinely surprising headlines.

Talk about a mall resurgence, what’s really standing out? What’s fascinating here isn’t just like a simple recovery, it’s much more about strategic repositioning. Take Dillard’s for instance, they, along with Trademark Property Co. They’re based in Fort Worth, recently bought the Longview Mall in East Texas.

It’s about 646,000 square feet and they pay $34 million. Okay. And their reason their explicit reason, the one they stated was to keep it out of the hands of what they call bad actors. Groups like Kohan Retail Investment Group, Namdar Realty Group. People often accuse them of letting properties just.

You know deteriorate. So this move by Dillard’s is actually really telling, it highlights their unique financial spot. They own most of their 272 locations, and they’re apparently sitting on over a billion dollars in cash. Wow. That’s a big difference from others. Exactly. It’s a stark contrast to say, JCPenney or Macy’s who’ve been selling off properties.

Dillard’s and trademark. They plan significant investments to modernize this mall that’s 47 years old, right? And crucially, it’s the only enclosed mall within a 45 mile radius. So this isn’t just about saving one asset. It feels like a strategic counter move against those purely financial real estate groups.

It suggests maybe legacy retailers are taking more control, redefining how these properties are managed. And if we connect this to the bigger picture, look at CBL properties, another major player. They also made a pretty significant move buying four enclosed malls for about $179 million. And that’s notable because it marks their first major purchase since way back in 2015.

So it signals this renewed confidence in, let’s say, mid-tier malls of. Market segment that seems to be finding its footing again, especially when someone’s actively managing and investing in them. Okay, so we’re seeing these big strategic buys, breathing new life into malls, but is this just a few stories or is there solid data backing this up?

Especially you know, from the consumer side? Yeah, exactly, and the data absolutely supports it. It’s actually quite surprising. Altus group research. Their data shows indoor malls are actually outperforming open air shopping centers in foot traffic growth. That’s for the first half of 2025. Really? How much growth?

Nearly 2% year over year growth. And here’s where it gets really interesting. Gen Z shoppers are surprisingly a key part of this rebound Gen Z, but aren’t they supposed to be all online? That’s the common thought, right? But for a generation, often seen as tied to screens. Malls seem to be reemerging as important social hubs, experiential destinations.

It really proves physical retail is far from dead. Yeah. It’s just evolving. It’s not just about the transaction anymore. They’re looking for community shared experiences, and well-maintained. Malls are starting to provide that. Again, that is a fascinating twist. It completely flips the script we’ve been hearing for so long.

All right. Let’s shift focus directly to Dallas-Fort Worth. Now we’re seeing equally strong, maybe even stronger activity right here. What specific local developments are catching your eye? Okay. This is where it gets super relevant for anyone listening in DFW or watching this market, Disney Investment Group.

No relation to the theme park. They recently brokered the sale of Mockingbird Central Plaza. It’s an urban fill shopping center, almost 80,000 square feet right there on Mockingbird Lane, near SMU in Dallas. Urban infill. So built into an existing dense area. Exactly. Strategically placed for convenience visibility.

Yeah. And what’s really remarkable, it’s currently 98% leased, 22 tenants. 98% leased. Yeah. So this isn’t just another sale. It reflects really robust. Consistent demand for high quality, located retail here, especially in areas with strong demographics, lots of foot traffic. And this also brings up a really important point about long-term confidence strategic structuring among the big local players.

We just saw two of Dallas’s most prominent real estate. Families, Ray Washburn’s family, and the descendants of HL Hunt, the oil tycoon, combine their huge property holdings. Oh, okay. Into what? A new venture called Gillen Property Group or GPG. This portfolio, they’ve consolidated its massive, 81 properties, 10 states, 14 million square feet total.

And notably, it includes Dallas’s, historic Highland Park Village, one of the country’s first luxury shopping centers and the Knox Street Retail district too. Quite a portfolio. It really is, and this isn’t just a simple merger, it’s strategic. It simplifies management operations, and it positions them perfectly for future acquisitions, future developments.

It just shows this deep, long-term confidence in strategic retail mixed use assets, especially within Dallas, from families who really know this market. Okay, so with all this activity, the mall buys the high leasing rates, these big local consolidations. What does this tell us about retail overall?

Because many people still think physical stores are struggling against e-commerce. The data, it tells a very different and frankly, quite compelling story. Take the N-C-R-E-I property index, it’s a key benchmark for institutional real estate. It just posted its fourth straight quarter of positive returns in Q2 2025.

And guess what? Retail led all property types, retail led by how much the 1.94% return. And that’s not just a blip, it’s consistent performance now. And Brandon Isner, he is Nu Mark’s head of US retail research. He goes even further. He states pretty emphatically that and mortar is thriving, not dying, thriving.

How this research shows us retail sales per square foot have jumped, get this roughly 45% since 2019. 45%. That’s huge. It is. And at the same time, retail space per capita has actually gone down. Now that’s a critical insight. It means. Existing stores are way more productive, generating significantly more revenue from the space they have.

Ah, okay. So that efficiency supports higher rents. Exactly. And it encourages retailers to try innovative store formats, adapt to what consumers want now, experience, convenience, all of that. Beyond just the performance data, we’re seeing big brands continuing to invest and expand their physical presence.

This isn’t only about managing old properties better. Absolutely. The commitment to physical retail is pretty clear across the board. Look at Whole Foods market. They apparently have over a hundred new stores in their development pipeline for the end of 2025. They’re speeding up growth. They’re even trying out smaller formats like these 8,500 square foot daily shop concepts in dense places like Manhattan, for grab and go.

Interesting adaptation, right? And then you have Aldi, the discount grocer. They’re making an aggressive push. Their first store in Midtown Manhattan is set for 2026. That’s just part of a massive plan. Yeah, open over 225 new stores this year. Invest $9 billion to add 800 stores by 2028. $9 billion, 9 billion.

These aren’t small adjustments. These are major strategic multi-billion dollar bets on expanding their physical footprint, adapting to different consumer needs. And even look at the capital markets, there’s significant confidence flowing back into retail there too. Bridge 33 Capital, for example, just secured a $460 million CMBS loan.

Okay, remind us. CMBS is commercial mortgage-backed securities. Basically, it’s. Cooled investment in property debt. They used it to refinance a portfolio of 12 retail properties across nine states. That portfolio was 91.4% leased, solidly leased then very. And the fact that the CMBS market is confidently backing such a large well leased retail portfolio that signals strong return of appetite from institutional lenders for these kinds of assets, they seem to be moving past earlier worries.

It suggests a healthy market for retail that’s performing well. It really seems the national retail story is. A lot more complex and frankly more optimistic than many realize. Okay. Let’s pivot now to the incredible energy we’re seeing specifically in North Texas commercial real estate. What are the big headlines?

Making our regions such a magnet for investment. Really setting it apart. Yeah. This is where the regional focus just highlights this powerhouse economy. We have, WalletHub did a study best real estate markets, and they identified five of the nation’s top 10 markets. Right here in North Texas, five out of the top ten five with McKinney taking the number one spot nationally.

Frisco, Richardson, Denton, Alan Drawn. They also showed really strong new construction activity. McKinney actually had the second highest share of houses built between 2010 and 2023, roughly 38% of its housing stock. That’s incredible growth. It’s not just growth, it indicates this phenomenal population influx, really robust economic foundations, and it sustained demands.

It’s just rare nationally. It tells you people really wanna live and work here. And maybe no single project shows this economic pull better than the new Goldman Sachs campus in uptown Dallas. The $500 million one, that’s the one construction’s well underway on that three acre site. Completions expected by 2028, we’re talking 800,000 square feet capacity for over 5,000 employees.

5,000, yeah. And this isn’t just another office building. It’s like a statement. It cements Dallas as a critical global hub for Goldman. And it really exemplifies that broader trend, the financial industry migrating to Sunbelt cities. Why the Sunbelt? Lower operating costs. Yeah. Business friendly environment.

Growing talent. Pool companies like Bank of America, JP Morgan, Schwab, they’re all expanding here too. And that in turn, fuels demand for all kinds of commercial property, including retail, to serve all those employees. And it’s not just finance, right? North Texas is rapidly becoming a major tech hub too.

That term Silicon Prairie seems less like hype now. Absolutely. It’s not just a buzzword anymore, it’s reality. We’re seeing over 50 billion. Billion with AB in semiconductor and tech projects actively transforming North Texas. Sherman, Texas is really the epicenter right now. You’ve got Texas Instruments, nearly $30 billion chip pab.

You’ve got multi-billion dollar facilities from global wafers and Coherent. And Apple recently announced something too. That’s right. Apple announced that a hundred billion dollars US manufacturing push. A lot of that is apparently earmarked for production based in Sherman. This isn’t just about high tech jobs though.

This tech boom is triggering a massive surge in housing demand and critically demand for all types of commercial property across the whole region, office, industrial. And yes, the retail needed to support this huge influx of workers and their families. And you can add another layer to that tech story, Hillwoods Alliance, Texas over in Fort Worth.

They just landed a huge $760 million AI deal with Wistron, the electronics giant from Taiwan, an AI deal. What does that involve? It involves establishing two massive AI supercomputer plants. Totaling 1.1 million square feet could create over 800 new jobs. And Fort Worth wasn’t just picked randomly. They cited the skilled talent pool, the strong logistics infrastructure, that vibrant industrial ecosystem in Alliance Texas.

Okay. It just reinforces North Texas emerging as this national hub for advanced manufacturing logistics and really critical AI infrastructure. It diversifies our economic base even more. So even while we hear national talk about rising office vacancies, maybe a slowdown DFW seems to be really bucking those trends quite significantly.

That’s absolutely right. Despite those national office vacancy rates climbing, the Dallas-Fort Worth office market is holding remarkably steady. In fact, DFW ranked second nationwide for total office construction right alongside a strong market like Boston second in the nation for construction. That’s surprising given the headlines.

It is. And this broad strength just underscores that developers here in North Texas, they remain confident in specific, chosen new projects. Why? Because they’re driven by our exceptional local economic growth, population growth, especially for that class A space that modern tenants demand. It’s really a testament to the region’s power to attract and keep major companies.

And if we connect this to the bigger picture. Remember all that fear just a year or two ago about a commercial real estate doomsday for banks, especially around distressed properties. Yeah. Yeah. That was everywhere. That now looks largely unlikely. Those concerns have mostly quieted down Banks showed they could work through problem properties, case by case, avoiding some kind of systemic crisis, and you see that stability reflected in the market data transaction volumes were up a healthy 13% year over year in the first half of 2025.

Okay. That’s positive and US commercial property prices. They posted back to back year over year gains in June and July. That’s the first time since mid 2022. It reflects clear stabilization, maybe even slight rises in valuations. Even sales in that crucial middle market properties between 5,000,020 $5 million, they saw a 3.5% game in the first half.

So renewed activity across different investment levels. Beyond these really dynamic local markets and the stabilizing national picture, there are also potentially huge shifts happening in the broader capital markets, right? Things that could fundamentally redefine how commercial real estate gets funded.

And this raises a really important. Potentially game changing question. Where’s the next big wave of capital for commercial real estate gonna come from? President Trump recently sparked a lot of industry buzz with an executive order. It aims to potentially unlock some of that staggering. $12 trillion held in 401k assets, 12 trillion for things like real estate, for alternative investments.

Yeah, including real. And right away the labor secretary rescinded an older Biden era statement that had discouraged 401k plans from looking at alternatives. So now regulators have 180 days to review the fiduciary guidelines, but there are hurdles aren’t there with retirement funds and illiquid assets?

Oh, absolutely. There are legitimate hurdles. Erisa, that’s the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, has really strict duties to protect retirement savings. Direct real estate investment is tricky because it’s a liquid, hard to value daily like stocks, but. The sheer scale of this potential capital shift has the industry just waiting with quote, bated breath, dedicated, defined contribution real estate funds, they already hold about $36.4 billion, and major financial firms are actively getting ready for this potential flood of new money, so it could be significant.

It suggests a really significant new path for capital if the rules evolve to make it more practical and accessible. Ah, it could honestly be a tidal wave of fresh investment. Okay, so let’s bring all these threads together. We’ve talked national retail resilience, the DFW boom, potential new capital sources.

What does this ultimately mean for you, our listener, whether you’re an investor, a business owner, or just tracking the North Texas market? Ultimately, I think the picture is one of really immense and varied opportunity. You’ve got this convergence. Stabilizing national property prices. This unexpected powerful resilience in retail, driven by smart adaptation and new consumer habits.

And then you layer on the explosive diversified growth right here in North Texas from becoming a critical financial hub. Transforming into Silicon Prairie, it paints a remarkably robust, optimistic outlook. And for those focused specifically on Dallas-Fort Worth retail, the strong local demand, the strategic investments by major players like Gil and Property Group, the constant influx of a growing diverse workforce, the whole economic boom, it creates an exceptionally fertile.

This market isn’t just poised for continued evolution. It’s an active landscape for significant value creation, especially for those who really understand the local dynamics and know how to position themselves strategically. Wow, what a deep dive. Indeed. We’ve certainly uncovered a really compelling story today, retail resilience, smart investment, north Texas, just emerging as this undeniable economic powerhouse.

The data really confirms. It’s a dynamic, evolving landscape. It’s far from those doom and gleam predictions We sometimes still hear. Indeed. Yeah. The DFW market, especially in retail, isn’t just, surviving. It’s thriving, it’s diversifying, actively adapting, and that’s driven by forward thinking, local leadership, massive diverse investment, and just this.

Ever expanding population base. So let’s leave you with this provocative thought. As major players from department stores detect giants, strategically invest and adapt to the shifting consumer and economic landscapes, and with potentially trillions in new capital, maybe coming from sources like 401k. How will these profound shifts redefine your understanding of commercial real estate’s future?

Where do you see the next wave of innovation landing? And maybe more importantly, how will you position yourself to capture that opportunity in dynamic markets like Dallas-Fort Worth, something definitely worth mulling over until our next deep dive.