Real estate developer Megacenter Willowbrook LLC is converting a former Walmart Supercenter in Houston to 49,193 square feet of self-storage plus industrial-flex, retail and office space. The 235,627-square-foot project at 7075 FM 1960, across the street from the Willowbrook Mall, is being built in three phases. It’s expected to be complete by November 2019, according to a press release from HFF (Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP), the commercial real estate and capital-markets services firm that secured construction financing on behalf of the developer.
Phase one, which broke ground earlier this year, includes a 113,940-square-foot gym, 47,319 square feet of flex space and a 6,810-square-foot auto center. Phase two will include 30,754 square feet of self-storage and 15,101 square feet of office space. The third phase will add another 18,439 square feet of storage and 10,165 square feet of office space.
“The Megacenter partners have proven to be market leaders in the adaptive-reuse space and are poised for great success at Megacenter Willowbrook, with an innovative mixed-use strategy that plays to the strong demographics in the area and creatively reconfigures the existing Walmart structure into a diverse and resilient income stream,” said Michael Johnson, director at HFF.
The project is the developer’s fifth in the United States. Megacenter is an affiliate of Red Megacentro, a Chile-based real estate developer and self-storage operator. The Houston project is similar to a 267,325-square-foot mixed-use development the group launched in 2016 in Miramar, Fla. The partnership involved in that project has been actively pursuing mixed-use projects in Florida.
Red Megacentro has more than 7.5 million square feet of real estate in operation in Chile, Peru and the United States. It has built 40 self-storage facilities between the three countries. The company tends to focus on redevelopment projects rather than new construction.
HFF and its affiliate, HFF Securities LP, are owned by HFF Inc. The firm operates out of 26 offices nationwide and specializes in advisory services, commercial-loan servicing, debt and equity placement, and investment and loan sales.
