The Dallas-Fort Worth region is the nation’s top market for new retail construction, spurred by an ever-growing number of grocers seeking to capitalize on people moving to Texas.
North Texas has 7.6 million square feet of new retail projects in the pipeline — roughly twice the amount of the No. 2 U.S. market, which is Phoenix with 3.6 million square feet, according to CoStar’s latest data.
“The Dallas-Fort Worth region leads the rest of the nation in new retail construction by wide margins,” CoStar’s Director of Market Analytics Cody Gibbs said. “Grocery stores and supermarkets drive a large portion ... of that pipeline, bringing not just the store itself, but also encouraging additional retail development around them as tenants push developers for more co-location opportunities.”
The influx of construction comes from the population growth throughout North Texas, the nation’s fourth-largest metropolitan area with more than 8.3 million residents.
“Retail follows rooftops, and today’s grocers are expanding” because of Dallas-Fort Worth’s ”phenomenal population growth,” said Bob Young, executive managing director at Texas-based brokerage Weitzman, during the firm’s 36th annual retail forecast held Wednesday at the George W. Bush Presidential Center at Southern Methodist University. “Part of this activity is grocers catching up with that growth.”
In the five years between 2019 and 2023, when the Dallas-Fort Worth region had about 7.5 million residents, developers added only 13 grocery projects, Young said, citing Weitzman’s internal data. One of those years, in 2021, there were no new grocery projects, he said, despite the population continuing to grow.
New grocery development began to ramp up in 2024 with the opening of seven grocery stores followed by another 18 the following year. Currently, Weitzman is tracking 34 new grocery stores in the works, with completions expected in 2026 and 2027.
“From our lens, Dallas-Fort Worth is definitely the most active grocery market in the entire country,” Young said.
Dallas-Fort Worth isn’t the only Texas region adding to its retail profile. Other major Texas cities — Austin, Houston and San Antonio — also rank in the top five markets in the nation for new retail construction.
Developers adding to their supply of retail real estate in Texas comes as the Dallas-Fort Worth region achieved in 2025 its highest occupancy for the third year in a row, at 95.3%, according to Weitzman.
“This performance cements remarkable retail stability in the face of inflation, tariff uncertainty, chain failures, rising construction costs, capital market ups and downs and other economic headwinds,” Young added.