Houston’s brick-and-mortar retail stores were among the hardest hit at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, as public health fears and lockdowns forced owners to temporarily shutter. Texas allowed businesses to reopen earlier than many other states, and avoided additional lockdown measures throughout the rest of 2020. Retail brokers say that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to fully reopen the state in March this year has boosted Houston’s retail sector even further, which could lead to a particularly tight market by the end of the year. “I've got centers that sat quiet for a year with the Covid situation, and [now] we have active deals working on every space to where we should get to 100% in the next month,” Wulfe & Co. Senior Vice President Kristen Barker said. “I think in general, the activity level has really picked up.” 
Like most other cities, Houston’s retail sector took a hit during the earliest days of the pandemic. In the first quarter of 2020 before the impact of the pandemic began to show, retail absorption was 1.4M SF. That fell to negative 42K SF in the second quarter of 2020, demonstrating a…  Read the full story here. | 
