STRIVE brokered the sale of Village Real Shopping Center in Webster, Texas.

The 95% occupied 94,294-square-foot retail center is positioned near El Camino Real and NASA Parkway. It is located less than two miles from NASA Johnson Space Center and Houston Methodist Clear Lake Hospital.

Jake Dutson of STRIVE represented the seller and found the out-of-state buyer.

Marcus & Millichap negotiated the sale of Yorktown Crossing, a 22,350-square-foot retail center in Houston.

Justin Miller, senior vice president investments and John Wagner, associate in Marcus & Millichap’s Houston office, had the exclusive listing to market the property on behalf of the seller, a private out-of-state investor.  The buyer was a Houston-based private investor.

Yorktown Crossing is located at 5537 Highway 6 N. in Houston. The center is fully occupied and sits on a 2.58-acre parcel. It includes a diverse mix of 12 tenants, all featuring triple-net leases.

JLL’s Capital Markets group arranged a $430 million refinancing for Fairmont Austin, a 37-story luxury hotel in downtown Austin.

JLL Capital Markets represented Manchester Financial Group in securing the five-year, interest only fixed-rate SASB CMBS loan, with Goldman Sachs acting as a lead manager and sole bookrunner. The all-mortgage financing package was used to replace a $300 million senior loan and $125 million of mezzanine debt.

Fairmont Austin spans 1.4 million square feet, standing proudly as the city’s fifth-tallest building. Developed by Manchester Financial Group, the luxury hotel first opened in 2018 and features 1,048 guestrooms and suites, nearly 140,000 square feet of meeting space, a full-service spa, five curated food and beverage outlets, an outdoor resort-style pool deck on the 7th floor and a grand pedestrian walkway providing direct access to the Austin Convention Center. Located at 101 Red River St., the property is within walking distance to the city’s premier lifestyle and entertainment areas including Rainey Street, East Austin and two blocks from Lady Bird Lake.

The JLL Capital Markets Debt Advisory team was led by Senior Managing Director Tim Wright, Senior Managing Director Aldon Cole and Director Olga Walsh.

Partners Real Estate arranged a 2,200-square-foot retail lease with My Dental at the Commons at Rivery, a 34,200-square-foot shopping center at 1313 Williams Drive in Georgetown, Texas.

Partners’ Kevin Murphy represented the landlord, Partners, in the transaction. Kelly Arnold represented the tenant in the transaction.

The Commons at Rivery, developed by Partners Finance, is an open-air concept that encourages social gatherings with its large connected patios. This vibrant space offers a live, work, play environment, making it a perfect spot for those seeking a balanced lifestyle. Situated near The Summit at Rivery Park, it provides direct access to downtown Georgetown, one of the fastest-growing cities with a population over 50,000.

While other markets have seen office construction dry up, the Dallas market is an exception: As JLL says in a second-quarter report, larger office developments are still breaking ground in the city and its surrounding communities.

Examples? JLL points to Bank of America Tower Parkside and The Knox office projects that delivered in the Dallas market in the second quarter. JLL reported that the office development pipeline here stood at more than 5.1 million square feet even as other markets across the country have seen dramatic slowdowns in new office construction.

Overall, JLL says, the fundamentals of the Dallas office market remained consistent throughout the second quarter of the year. The market has seen improved absorption numbers and a healthy leasing volume.

This doesn’t mean, though, that the Dallas office market isn’t facing challenges. JLL reported that the total office vacancy rate in the Dallas office market stood at 26.6% as of the end of the second quarter.

That is only a small increase, though, from the 26.3% office vacancy rate in the first quarter of the year, JLL reported. And much of the office vacancy is concentrated in a small portion of buildings, with JLL research indentifying that nearly 60% of vacancies can be found in just 10% of area office buildings.

The Class-A direct asking rent did rise, though, to an average of $38.81 a square foot in the second quarter. The overall office direct asking rent stood at an average of $35.25 a square foot in the second quarter.

Notable new office leases in the second quarter include Santander’s renewal for 211,087 square feet at Santander Tower, Onsemi’s 97,496-square-foot lease at 505 Millenium and Jones Day announcing its 73,000-square-foot relocation within the Harwood District to the soon-to-be-built Harwood No. 15.

JLL said that tenants are continuing to evaluate their office space needs, something that is influencing average lease sizes and lengths. According to JLL’s report, office leases of less than 5,000 square feet continue to make the majority of deals signed in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, with 578 of the quarter’s 685 tracked leases falling in that range.

The U.S. industrial vacancy rate increased by 40 basis points in the second quarter, reaching 6.1%, the highest level in nine years, according to the latest research from Cushman & Wakefield.

Despite this rise in vacancy, though, industrial absorption doubled in the second quarter, with 46.3 million square feet of space taken off the market, a sign that even with a higher vacancy rate, the U.S. industrial sector still boasts strong market fundamentals.

Jason Price, Americas Head of Logistics & Industrial Research at Cushman & Wakefield, said that while no one likes to see higher vacancy rates, the vacancy rate in the industrial sector remains well below the 10-year pre-pandemic average of 7%.

“Despite the rise in vacancy, industrial markets are showing increasing levels of demand after a sluggish first quarter,” Price said. “New supply is leveling off as developers wait for the market to catch up. We expect that vacancy will peak early next year at 6.7% as the markets stabilize.”

Asking rent growth continued to cool, with nationwide rents rising 3.7% year-over-year, driven by the Northeast (+5.3%) and South (+2.9%) regions.

Quarterly leasing activity was 137.2 million square feet, down 2.8% from the 141.1 million square feet reported in the first quarter. However, the second quarter total was 11.2% higher than the 10-year pre-pandemic quarterly average of 126.9 million square feet.

The U.S. registered 278.4 million square feet of new deal activity through midyear, putting the market on pace to surpass the 500-million-square-foot mark for the 10th straight year. These normalized levels of deal volume are partially due to moderating consumer demand, longer transaction times and, in some cases, decreasing average deal sizes.

Seven markets recorded more than 10 million square feet of leasing activity through midyear, led by the Inland Empire (22.1 million square feet), Dallas/Ft. Worth (19.2 million square feet) and Houston (16.7 million square feet).

New construction deliveries remained robust, with 121.1 million square feet of new product completed in the second quarter, on par with the previous quarter. This pushed the year-to-date total to 239.6 million square feet, the second-highest midyear total on record, 84% of which was speculative. The South region continues to account for the highest share of new deliveries (48.3%), with markets such as Atlanta, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Savannah, and Houston delivering large amounts of new industrial space.

Construction starts remained relatively muted in Q2, although up slightly compared to the first quarter. The under-construction pipeline fell to its lowest level (343.3 million square feet) since mid-2020 (334.8 million square feet). The pipeline has declined by 14.4% since Q1 and is down 46% from a year ago. The South (-118%) and Midwest (-99%) regions posted the sharpest pipeline declines during the same period.

Of the national under-construction pipeline total, speculative product makes up 67.7%, down from 71.4% in the first quarter. This share is likely to decrease further in the second half of 2024 as speculative warehouse facilities continue to deliver at a healthy rate and build-to-suit manufacturing facilities remain under development due to their longer construction timelines.

“Industrial markets continue to show strength and resilience, even as they adjust and level-set following the pandemic boom,” said Price. “As development slows to meet demand and absorption catches up to supply, we will see the markets find balance.”