Marcus & Millichap closed the sale of a 61-room Best Western Plus Royal Mountain Inn & Suites in Athens, Texas. 

Skyler Cooper, investment specialist in Marcus & Millichap’s Dallas office, exclusively marketed the property on behalf of the seller and procured the buyer. The transaction received additional support from Allan Miller and Chris Gomes of the Miller-Gomes Hotel Team. 

The Best Western Plus Royal Mountain Inn & Suites, built in 2009, is located on two acres at 1814 State Highway 31 E. The three-story, 61-room hotel includes a business center, outdoor pool, fitness center, guest laundry, breakfast area and meeting space.  

 JLL Capital Markets arranged the sale of Wildcreek Apartments, a 232-unit, 1984-vintage garden-style apartment community in South Central Austin.

JLL represented the seller, Bob Reeve. The buyer was Continental Realty Group.

The community is strategically positioned at 1511 Faro Dr. in Austin’s Southeast Central submarket, offering convenient access to major employment centers including Oracle’s headquarters, Tesla’s Gigafactory and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. 

Wildcreek Apartments sits on 14.2 acres and features a mix of one and two-bedroom units averaging 660 square feet. The 153,120-square-foot multifamily community offers significant value-add potential with 100% of units unrenovated and current occupancy at 63%. Community amenities include two swimming pools, on-site laundry facilities and expansive green spaces. Unit interiors feature open floor plans with carpet and vinyl plank flooring, electric appliances and individual HVAC systems. The property presents substantial upside potential through strategic renovations to unit interiors, common areas and implementation of improved management practices.

JLL Capital Market’s Investment Sales and Advisory team representing the seller was led by Managing Director Ryan McBride, Senior Managing Director Robert Wooten and Managing Director Robert Arzola.

Northmarq’s Houston Investment Sales team closed three separate shopping center transactions across Texas during the month of July. The deals were led by Northmarq’s Riley Sharman and team.  

Northmarq represented buyers for Autum Heights (Converse, Texas) and Ella Plaza (Houston), and represented the seller at Sedona Lakes Plaza (Manvel, Texas).  

Ella Plaza – Houston, Texas 
Representing Sega Development, LLC, Northmarq arranged the acquisition of Ella Plaza, a 90% leased, 82,073-sq.-ft. shopping center located at 1319 Cypress Creek Parkway in Houston.  

Anchored by national and government credit tenants such as Advance Auto Parts, CSL Plasma, and Harris County Public Health, the center sees strong traffic counts and benefits from a population exceeding 330,000 within a five-mile radius. The seller was True Saga, LLC, based in Houston, and the transaction was a 1031 exchange. 

Autumn Heights – Converse, Texas 
Northmarq also represented the buyer based out of Brooklyn, New York, Autumn Heights Realty LLC, in the acquisition of Autumn Heights, a 13,949-sq.-ft. retail center located at 7215 N Loop 1604 E. in Converse, just outside San Antonio. Built in 2020, the fully leased center benefits from a strategic location within one of the fastest-growing suburbs in the region.  

Tenants include Great Clips, Marco’s Pizza, and Verizon, with staggered lease expirations and strong local demographics driving long-term value. The seller was Boomslang Ventures, LLC, based in San Antonio, and the transaction was a 1031 exchange. 

Sedona Lakes Plaza – Manvel, Texas 
Representing the seller, 10309 Bailey LLC, a Houston-based developer, Northmarq arranged the sale of Sedona Lakes Plaza, a newly constructed, 14,803-sq.-ft. retail center located at 10237 Bailey Road in Manvel, Texas. The property is 100% leased to five national and regional tenants including HOTWORX, Smart Core Labs, and Behavioral Innovations.  

With strong visibility along Highway 288 and a surrounding affluent population averaging over $163,000 in household income within one mile, the center offers long-term rental stability and ease of management through triple net leases. The buyer was Meto Real Estate, LLL, a first-time buyer based in Dallas. 

Constellation Real Estate Partners acquired 15 acres of land at 2555 Genoa Red Bluff Road in Pasadena, Texas, for the development of Constellation Genoa Red Bluff, a 240,041-square-foot Class-A industrial building. 

Construction will begin in Q3 2025 with completion scheduled for Q2 2026.  Constellation Real Estate Partners currently own 5.6 million square feet of industrial space in Texas, Florida and North Carolina.

Constellation Genoa Red Bluff will feature a 36-foot clear height, 158 car parking spaces, 20 trailer spaces, a dedicated truck drive, and visibility on Genoa Red Bluff Road.

Constellation Genoa Red Bluff is in the heart of Houston’s Southeast submarket, a preferred location for logistics users that serve the Port of Houston. The site has quick access to Beltway 8, and I-45, providing easy access to reach end consumers throughout Houston. Marketing and leasing efforts for Genoa Red Bluff will be exclusively handled by Joseph Smith, Ed Frantz, and Savannah Smith of CBRE.

Fairstead acquired and plans to rehabilitate Royal Crest, a 167-unit Section 8 subsidized housing community in Dallas.

Marking Fairstead’s debut in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, the project affirms the company’s ongoing commitment to expand access to affordable housing in high-need markets throughout the U.S. The redevelopment will feature comprehensive interior and exterior renovations, including sustainable, energy-efficient upgrades to enhance the quality of life for residents while preserving long-term affordability. Total rehabilitation costs amount to approximately $24 million.

Today, Fairstead’s national portfolio exceeds 25,000 affordable homes across 28 states, with its Texas presence totaling 1,166 units. Financial partners for the Royal Crest project include a mix of public and private sector institutions, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Housing Options Inc., a subsidiary of the Dallas Housing Authority, and permanent financing through Cedar Rapids Bank and Trust. 

Located at 3558 Willhurt Ave. in the city’s Cedar Crest neighborhood, Royal Crest is a 12-building, two-story garden-style community reserved for families earning between 50% and 60% of the Area Median Income (AMI). The apartments consist of 16 one-bedroom residences, 120 two-bedroom residences, and 31 three-bedroom residences.

Originally constructed in 1969, Royal Crest has not undergone a substantial renovation in more than five decades, making Fairstead’s investment a transformative moment for the community. The revitalization will bring the property up to modern standards, with upgrades designed to meet National Green Building Standard Gold + Net Zero guidelines. Renovations will include a full overhaul of all common areas, in-unit interiors, building exteriors, mechanical systems, and site infrastructure to enhance operational efficiency and quality of living for residents. New amenities and spaces will include the development of a new clubhouse, a dedicated resident services office, a newly improved laundry facility, and a modernized community room that will house both a computer lab and resident services space.

The 167-home community comprises 12 buildings, including a dedicated amenities building that will undergo significant renovations to include a new community center, computer lab, a play area for children, a food pantry, and an updated laundry facility. Designed to provide all-encompassing support to residents of Royal Crest, the amenities space will offer on-site K-12 after-school programming, financial literacy and health programs, career training, and regular recreational and social activities led by local nonprofit, Rainbow Housing Assistance Corporation. Fairstead will serve as both the owner and property manager. 

In addition to HUD, Housing Option Inc. and Cedar Rapids Bank and Trust, financial partners also include Capital One National Association, which issued a construction loan, and tax credit equity syndicator Hudson Housing Capital. 

Renovations at Royal Crest commenced this month, and construction is scheduled to continue through the fall of 2026. 

The vacancy rate for colocation data centers across the United States is nearing 0%, according to the latest research from JLL.

And don’t expect much relief in the future. JLL reported that the construction pipeline of 8 gigawatts is 73% preleased. This means that any significant uptick of vacancy rates remains years away. JLL predicts that even if preleasing activity slows significantly in the near-term, data center vacancy rates would likely remain below 5% through 2027.

And the more likely scenario? JLL predicts that vacancy rates will remain in the 2% range through 2027 in this key sector.

This means that companies hoping to expand their data center operations might be limited to preleasing in new developments, a move that could be followed by a year or more of waiting for construction to be completed before these end users can take occupancy.

Because of this lack of supply, some data center development has been moving into secondary and tertiary markets. JLL, though, says that these emerging markets are only capturing a fraction of colocation demand. Demand for colocation space remains concentrated in core markets such as Northern Virginia and Dallas.

During the first half of 2025, 50% of the absorption recorded in data centers came in those two above markets. Rounding out the top five markets for absorption in the first half were Chicago, which saw 368 megawatts of absorption; Austin/San Antonio, which recorded 291 megawatts of absorption; and Atlanta, with 150 megawatts.

How strong is demand for data center space? JLL reported that the data center sector’s market cap growth was 161% from 2019 through the first half of 2025. That’s second only to the industrial sector, which saw market cap growth of 163% during the same time. Coming in third place was the strip center sector with a market cap growth of 110%, followed by self-storage at 80% and healthcare at 35%.