Interview Recap: Rob Franks, Kenton McKeehan, and Mike Jordan in Conversation with James Cook LISTEN TODAY — Where We Buy #398

Retail construction in the U.S. is at historic lows, averaging just 16.4 square feet under construction per 100 people nationally. Dallas-Fort Worth is the exception, running nearly 40% higher than the next closest market, with roughly 7 million square feet in the pipeline — about 10% of all retail construction in the country. On this episode of Where We Buy, host James Cook talks with Rob Franks (JLL, Dallas) and Big V Property Group’s Kenton McKeehan (President & Chief Investment Officer) and Mike Jordan (Director of Research) about what’s driving the boom, and dig into Big V’s new Rosamond Town Center and Rosamond Crossing developments in Anna, Texas.

The Grocery Wars Are Fueling the Boom Franks pointed to an aggressive grocery landscape as the primary driver of DFW’s growth. Kroger, H-E-B, Sprouts, Trader Joe’s, Tom Thumb, and Whole Foods are all competing hard for market share, pushing vacancy to record lows across the Metroplex. H-E-B’s entry into the market — after quietly assembling roughly 28 sites — forced Kroger into a more aggressive posture, including relocating and upsizing stores to add marketplace-format space. The result, Franks said, is that retailers are following grocers into DFW’s fast-growing suburbs: Prosper, Celina, Anna, Melissa, Sherman, and Princeton. Even with the current pipeline, that new construction only adds about 1.5% to total inventory, suggesting the market isn’t overbuilding so much as catching up to years of pent-up demand.

Rents Have Caught Up — But So Has Performance New tenants often arrive expecting Dallas rents to be a bargain; Franks noted that perception has faded as construction and land costs have pushed rents higher across the board, especially in Class A+ retail. Yet strong tenant performance has kept demand high — Franks cited a Hopdoddy location at West Grove that has become one of the brand’s flagship stores, illustrating how pent-up consumer demand continues to reward well-placed retailers and restaurant groups in DFW.

Why Collin County, Specifically McKeehan and Jordan explained why Big V — which also operates centers in San Antonio, Houston, and Austin — targeted Collin County. Growth has pushed north along the Highway 75 corridor beyond the traditional Frisco/Plano core, aided by exceptional road infrastructure (75 and the Dallas North Tollway bracketing a large stretch of flat, developable land) and a newly completed Collin County toll road connecting the two. Jordan noted that Big V looks for markets with higher incomes, highly educated populations, and strong growth — a combination that’s rare to find together, but present “in spades” in Anna. He compared DFW to Raleigh-Durham and Nashville as similarly-positioned growth markets, but noted DFW’s flat topography makes it easier and cheaper to build on than the hillier Southeast. Collin County’s population is projected to surpass the city of Houston’s by 2050, and four of the five fastest-growing cities in the U.S. — Anna, Celina, Princeton, and Melissa — sit within a roughly 15-mile radius of each other.

Inside Rosamond Town Center and Rosamond Crossing Big V’s development sits at Rosamond Parkway and Highway 75 in Anna. The southeast corner (Rosamond Town Center) is anchored by a Kroger Marketplace — the first major grocer in that immediate submarket — along with seven outparcels including Bank of America, Chase, McDonald’s, Valvoline, and a specialty center for service and food tenants. Strong early retailer interest led Big V to assemble additional land to the north (Rosamond Crossing), anchored by tenants including Academy, Burlington, PetSmart, TJ Maxx, HomeGoods, EOS Fitness, and Aldi, creating what McKeehan called critical mass between McKinney and Sherman. Kroger is on track to open in November, with the remaining Rosamond Town Center tenants delivering through the fall and Rosamond Crossing tenants beginning construction in the following spring. McKeehan credited close cooperation with the City of Anna — which understood the tax-base and infrastructure benefits new retail could bring to schools, fire, and roads — as essential to moving quickly.

A Market Starved for Retail Before this development, Anna’s only significant retail was a Walmart (performing 50% above the chain average) and a small Brookshire’s grocery. Franks noted deep, unmet tenant demand had been building for years, with several national retailers unable to find a location in Anna that met their visibility, size, and co-tenancy requirements until now. Jordan added that Anna’s population doubled between 2020 and 2024 and is projected to grow another 55% over the next eight years, with several Sherman-area tenants already ranking in the top quartile of their chains nationally despite the market’s small current size. Jordan and McKeehan also pointed to Walmart’s drone-delivery program, now active in the area, as a signal of how sophisticated and digitally engaged the local customer base has become.

What’s Actually Missing Elsewhere in the U.S. Asked why retail construction remains stalled nationally, McKeehan framed it as a question of intersection: land that’s accessible and reasonably priced, paired with rents high enough to justify construction costs, which are largely fixed market-to-market. Every major Texas market has reset its rent ceiling on retail, unlocking that combination. Franks added texture on the numbers — DFW’s average rent still sits around $25 per square foot, but in Collin County specifically, rents have been pushed to $40–45 per square foot, a level at which development actually pencils out. Tenants willing to pay it are adapting: shrinking prototypes, sharpening store-level pro formas, and finding other efficiencies to make the economics work in high-growth suburban submarkets.