Texas-based commercial real estate investment and development firm Headwall Investments recently announced its 18th shopping center acquisition, which expanded the firm’s portfolio to more than 600,000 square feet across the Austin, San Antonio, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Houston metropolitan areas.
The property is Tower at Boerne, a fully leased, unanchored neighborhood shopping center in the San Antonio metro area. Strong attributes that attracted Headwall to invest include the great visibility along high-traffic corridors, robust vehicle-per-day counts, seamless accessibility for customers, and a surrounding market characterized by strong household incomes. The rapidly growing Boerne community made for a long-term value investment location, which positions the Tower at Boerne as a cornerstone of the firm’s portfolio.
“The unanchored shopping center subsector of commercial real estate has undergone a remarkable evolution since I began acquiring assets in this space in 2007,” said George J. Wommack, founder and CEO of Headwall Investments. “Beyond the significant supply constraints impacting these properties in recent years, the most notable shift has been the surge in institutional interest. What was once a market dominated by smaller, individual owners has transformed into a sought-after asset class for institutional investors, drawn by robust fundamentals and the opportunity to scale in a previously overlooked corner of commercial real estate. We are honored to have been early pioneers in this sector and remain committed to acquiring top-tier assets in Texas’ major metropolitan markets.”
This northwest San Antonio commercial property is home to a dynamic mix of local and regional businesses that cater to the area’s affluent and expanding population. Notably, none of them is a large retailer or chain store that would typically anchor the property and drive traffic to it. However, Tower at Boerne is doing just fine without one.
In fact, retail investment expert reports have noted that a varied tenant composition —including convenience stores, local eateries, boutique shops and service providers — has proven to be a successful retail recipe. That’s because unanchored shopping centers have an enhanced capacity for agility and adaptability to changing consumer preferences and evolving market dynamics. This capacity makes it comparatively easier to meet a new market reality more quickly than larger, anchored assets or single-tenant retail properties.
Furthermore, a retail property with a high diversity of smaller retail tenants can more easily adapt to changing consumer demand (of which there has been plenty throughout the last few years) as it can more easily adjust its roster.
