How to best redevelop vacant big box retail property in Texas

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how a developer can best redevelop a vacant big box retail property. To accomplish this, statistical, geographical and demographical analysis was done on previously repositioned vacant big boxes. To make this project manageable, the timeline for this study was limited to properties redeveloped within the last ten years and the geographic scope was narrowed to the state of Texas. Sales data on vacant big boxes sold in Texas within the last ten years was collected from Real Capital Analytics. Research was conducted via Internet, telephone and site visits in order to determine the current use of each property and was later categorized by current use. Each property-s tax appraised value at the time of sale and today was collected from each properties county appraisal district and compared in order to measure changes in value from the re-positioning. Three previous and relevant studies have been conducted prior to this thesis, two by Colliers International and one by Texas A&M University. All three are discussed in detail and incorporated into this thesis. Results show that big boxes in high population density locations found new tenants much faster than those in less dense locations. Rental rates on average fell further for freestanding repositioned big boxes when compared to big boxes that were a part of a multi-tenant property. The properties where the old structure was demolished and a new structure was built had the largest increase in both total tax-assessed value and tax-assessed land value. Properties that still had the same existing structure and remained vacant lost the most tax-appraised value.