Sugar Land Retail in High Demand

Sugar Land is known nationwide as a thriving master-planned community (it's also known to share a name with a pretty great country band, also called Sugarland), and retail there is booming. Case in point: Henry S Miller signed five leases totaling nearly 20k SF in Williams Trace Shopping Center and has several pending leases thatll bring it over 90% occupancy.

HSMs Jason Du, Shawn Ackerman, and Cyrus Chen (above, at a 99 Ranch grand opening) repped the landlord. Shawn tells us national tenants want into Sugar Land (one reason: 60,000 cars per day, a huge stat for a suburb), but pretty much everything is sold out and built out. That means landlords often can pick and choose from offers. The recent deals in Williams Trace Shopping Center include 15k to E&G Amish Furniture (its fourth expansion here since 09), 1,213 SF to Monster Dessert Bar, 2,412 SF to The Language Factory, and 1,278 SF to Ashe Laser Med Spa. 30k SF is still available, mostly in small store spaces.

This was taken by our Vatican City blimp, which we were able to reassign after yesterday. Shawn says Sugar Land retail has one big challenge: Its codes changed on Jan. 1 and can add substantial cost to building out new stores. Both E&G Amish Furniture and Monster Dessert Bar had to undertake lengthy and costly construction processes (up to 30% higher than projected) to improve sprinkler systems and add restrooms. Landlords in the area might consider bringing their empty spaces up to code to attract users; Shawn says retailers dont want to deal with it and many will flock to centers that are already prepared.