Editors’ Weekly News Roundup January 27 – January 31
Demonstrating that perseverance can pay off, NewQuest has begun construction on a $400-million mixed-use shopping center in Katy, TX. The developer has pursued the project, known as Texas Heritage Marketplace, for nearly a decade.
Connect CRE readers plainly drew inspiration from the endeavor detailed in Construction Underway on $400M Katy Center, making it our most-read story of the past week. It noted that the project was deemed ready to go with the completion of the 6.5-mile Texas Heritage Parkway.
Elsewhere in Texas, venerable grocery chain H-E-B is continuing a program of expanding or replacing its older stores in the Austin metro area. The week’s second most-read story, H-E-B Plans to Tear Down Dripping Springs Store, to Build a Bigger One, revealed that the current 75,000-square-foot location in this western suburb would be replaced by a 125,000-square-foot ground-up development.
Founded in 1905, H-E-B is the dominant grocer in the Austin metro. It operates more than 50 stores across the region, representing a sizable percentage of a chain that numbers more than 400 locations across Texas and Mexico.
A more nationwide program of phasing out older properties was the focus of the week’s third most-read story. AT&T Bags $850M in Upfront Proceeds from Sale-Leaseback of Central Offices reported a deal between the telecom giant and Reign Capital involving a unique structure that enables future profit sharing from redevelopment opportunities.
The seller plans to exit the majority of its legacy copper network operations by the end of 2029. The latest transaction with Reign Capital, which follows a smaller portfolio sale-leaseback in 2021, encompasses 74 central offices that dated from the days before fiber optic and wireless networks.
The footprint of Reich Brothers also covers the U.S., but the transaction described in our fourth most-read story was strictly regional. That region is Florida’s Space Coast, the setting for Reich Brothers Sells Titusville Warehouse for $42.2M.
Titusville Logistics Center happens to be among the few Class A industrial properties along the Space Coast. Its new owner is Hines.
Completing the top five among Connect CRE readers’ top stories this past week was a report on a property sector that has been slower to rebound from the 2020 pandemic, especially since a shift toward remote work called the future of office into question. In early 2025, though, the sector is coming back into vogue among investors.
U.S. Office Sector Investment Sales Begin Surging Againdetailed the various buying strategies currently being deployed across the U.S. They range from acquiring debt-laden premium properties to scooping up functionally obsolete Class B and C assets for residential conversion, with deep-pocketed foreign investors also getting into the game. As Gary Phillips, managing director at Eastdil Secured, told the Wall Street Journal, “People are making their bets.”