In 2024, the retail market in the Houston metro area experienced vacancies due to closures of major chains such as Conn’s and Big Lots. However, thanks to strong demand and limited new developments, as well as quick backfilling of vacant locations, overall occupancy increased to 95.5% by the end of that year.
The robust leasing activity for these vacant spaces also helped offset any new vacancies caused by chain retail closures.
These findings are based on a review conducted by Weitzman on Houston’s retail inventory, which consists of approximately 166.3 million square feet in projects with at least 25,000 square feet.
Although conservative estimates were used for this analysis, there was still a significant increase in construction compared to previous years – reaching its highest total since 2022 with approximately1 ,305 ,600 square feet delivered through new and expanded projects.
This is also the first time since 2022 that deliveries have surpassed one million square feet – when they totaled at around1 .2 million square feet for newly developed space.
