Meyerland Plaza is For Sale, Market briefs

In Houston, Meyerland Plaza, a retail center that opened in Southwest Houston in 1957, is being marketed by JLL Capital Markets for sale to investors.

The 948,000-SF center, which is 88 percent leased, sits at the southwest corner of Beechnut Street and Loop 610. Tenants include H-E-B, Target, Ross, Marshalls, JCPenney, and Office Depot.

Fidelis Realty Partners, in partnership with BlackRock, purchased the property from Ronus Properties in 2013 and obtained $93 million in financing through John Hancock in 2017.

In August of 2017, Hurricane Harvey, which dropped 50 inches of rain in four days, caused extensive flooding in the Meyerland area. A significant amount of flood control work has been completed since then.

However, the hurricane opened opportunity for the shopping center as Texas grocer H-E-B built a two-level, 95,000-SF store above surface parking. The H-E-B store, the first grocer for the center since Henke & Pillot departed in the 1960s, attracts thousands of shoppers to Meyerland Plaza.

Meyerland Plaza has rebounded from aftershocks from the nationwide “Retail Armageddon.” In recent years, closures and departures included Best Buy, Stein Mart, Pier 1 Imports, Palais Royal and Bed Bath & Beyond.

The next generation of Meyerland Plaza tenants includes Dicks Sporting Goods, Five Below and Jo Ann. The late Ed Wulfe, who was a major force in the Houston retail center business, purchased Meyerland Plaza in the early 1990s, a transaction engineered by veteran broker Rusty Tamlyn, who retired from JLL last year.

In the highlight of Wulfe’s career, a major redevelopment of Meyerland Plaza was completed and new tenants were signed, including a two-story Borders book store that is now a Kelsey Seybold clinic.

Fidelis, which is headquartered in Bellaire about a mile from Meyerland Plaza, is led by Alan Hassenflu. The firm has holdings in Texas, in the Sunbelt and in the central U.S. Meyerland Plaza is being marketed by Ryan West, Chris Gerard, Erin Lazarus and Colby Mueck of JLL Capital Markets. Approximately 277,000 people live within a 10-minute drive of Meyerland Plaza.