Nature is a selling point for retailers
Bicycles, scooters and strollers rolled along a bustling Heights Hike and Bike Trail on a recent evening, many veering off for a detour through M-K-T, the new mixed-use retail development off North Shepherd.
There, women in yoga pants milled around chatting as children chased each other in circles. People wandered in and out of clothing and jewelry shops and ate Sweetgreen salads on an outdoor patio. Leashed dogs sniffed at tall Texas wildflowers that lined walking paths crisscrossing the development.
M-K-T, still in the process of opening, represents a new kind of retail development that incorporates green space and makes it a focal point for shoppers as the COVID-19 pandemic — and the
added risk of infection indoors — pushes people to spend more time outside and reacquaint themselves with fresh air, shade trees, rolling meadows and other natural surroundings. Nature-focused developments are the latest efforts of retailers and developers, who have tried everything from building skating rinks to hosting concerts, to create experiences that draw people to brick-and-mortar shops instead of shopping online.
Mixed-use projects under construction along Buffalo Bayou — Autry Park on Allen Parkway and East River in the East End — are emphasizing 100-year-old oaks and skyline-by-thebayou views to attract people to the offices, stores and restaurants. The redevelopment of the former Barbara Jordan Post Office downtown into POST Houston features a 5.5-acre rooftop park, said to be the nation’s largest.
In Memorial City, MetroNational is expanding The Lawn at Memorial City to 30,000 square feet to provide green space that the Houston developer said “just about everyone was clamoring for.”
“If this (greening of retail) shows signs of acceptance and success,” said Venky Shankar, research director for Texas A&M University’s Center for Retailing Studies, “that will be a bellwether for other developments.”
Unprecedented test
The pandemic has tested retailers and developers like never before, not only habituating customers to avoiding enclosed places and shopping online, but also creating supply chain disruptions that are making it harder to get and keep popular items on the shelves. Now, they hope the blending of green space with retail (and office) space will meet that test.
The strategy seems to be working.
Despite a nearly twoyear intrusion by a global pandemic, M-K-T is nearly 80 percent leased after breaking ground in August 2019, said Scott Arnoldy, whose firm Triten Real Estate Partners co-developed the project with Radom Capital. Arnoldy said he felt compelled to redevelop the vacant warehouses into shops along the bike path after walking it himself, and seeing how busy it was.
An estimated 12,000 people use the trail each month, which meant builtin foot traffic for M-K-T’s shops and restaurants. “There’s a number of tenants that felt the bike path frontage was the premium spot,” Arnoldy said.
Cody Lonidier likes to skateboard along the bike path that winds through the Heights. That’s how he first found the M-K-T development and suggested it as a location for Tre Sorelle, the clothing boutique for women and babies that he owns with his wife, Dayton Box.
Foot traffic was slow after opening at M-K-T last fall, Box said, but business picked up in recent months as the development progressed and more restaurants started opening. Neighboring is Lawrence Park, a grassy pocket where people picnic, play baseball and throw sticks to their dogs.
Sarah Watts, pushing her 3-week-old baby in a stroller, followed her 3year-old son off the bike path as he rocketed around on a tiny turquoise scooter. She said the new development offers her an opportunity to take a short walk with the kids, grab a bite and browse the shops.
For customers like Watts, the experience MK-T offers is more than just shops, restaurants and pleasant surroundings, said Blake Coleman, Houston principal for Austinbased landscape architecture firm TBG Partners. The walk to M-K-T is part of the itch the experience scratches — people are yearning to get outside, especially during a pandemic that has isolated so many. That’s a problem brickand-mortar retail can solve.
Inspired by Van Gogh
But it’s not cheap. Getting the landscaping right can cost millions. At Autry Park, developers started with a list of native plants found along Buffalo Bayou, planting them in walls and draping them over the buildings, and shading walkways with mature trees. Four oaks, ranging from 60 to 130 years old, were dug up and moved to frame the larger development and complete the tiein with the bayou.
“All to make it appear Buffalo Bayou Park is spilling out into the development,” said Matt Ragan, director of retail programming and operations at Rebees, the brokerage handling leasing at Autry Park.
The trees are both beautiful and practical, shading the development from the Texas sun. Increasingly developers in Houston are interested in providing shade as a way to keep people cool.
“The pandemic has forced particularly retailers to think about the outdoor spaces they provide,” said Ryan Harrison, studio leader at the landscape design firm OJB. “Before it was really easy to fall back on air conditioning for comfort.”
That’s what attracted Kirthan Shenoy, chef-owner of Auden, a restaurant opening in Autry Park in the spring. Shenoy said he was looking for a patio aesthetic inspired by Van Gogh’s painting “Cafe Terrace at Night” and found it in Autry Park, where the landscaping created a seamless transition to Buffalo Bayou Park.
Shenoy, who grew up in Houston, said the city’s green space has long been overlooked and underappreciated — but sentiments shifted during the pandemic.
“Before the pandemic you might have considered not having a patio,” he said. “But now not only is a patio necessary, it can be a focal point in a restaurant and bar endeavor.”
Developers at East River, too, approached their design with outdoors at the forefront. The $2.5 billion 150-acre development of retail, offices and residences just east of downtown was designed to include more open-air pockets and patios for people to spend more time outside, said Lacee Jacobs, vice president of strategic leasing for the Houston developer Midway. The vision behind the bayou-facing development is to give Houstonians a waterfront-patio feel offered in other major cities, such as New York and Chicago.
Midway is also building a walking path along its milelong stretch of waterfront property.
“I don’t think we have a single restaurant tenant that doesn’t want to max out the patio space at East River,” she said. “We just kind of tend to ignore it as a natural amenity in Houston. It really is a part of the bayou that flows like a river.”