“Retail follows rooftops, and today’s grocers are expanding.”

Bob Young
Executive Managing Director
Weitzman
…on why Dallas-Fort Worth leads the nation in new retail construction, speaking at Weitzman’s 36th annual retail forecast at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, via CoStar.

Dallas-Fort Worth now leads the country in retail construction, with a development pipeline more than double that of any other U.S. metro, according to a CoStar News report by Candace Carlisle. The region has 7.6 million square feet underway, compared to 3.6 million in second-place Phoenix.

Grocery stores are fueling much of that activity as they work to keep pace with people moving to Texas, Young said at Weitzman’s Wednesday event, held at Southern Methodist University.

New arrivals keep coming. U-Haul recently named Dallas-Fort Worth the No. 1 growth metro in the nation for both 2024 and 2025, based on net one-way moves. Suburbs like Plano and Frisco rank among the top destinations.

Grocers have ground to make up. Weitzman data cited by Carlisle shows just 13 new grocery projects opened regionwide from 2019 to 2023—with zero in 2021—even as the population hovered around 7.5 million.

The pace has accelerated sharply since then: seven stores in 2024, 18 in 2025, and 34 more tracked for 2026 and 2027.

“From our lens, Dallas-Fort Worth is definitely the most active grocery market in the entire country,” Young said.

Read more on CoStar.

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