After some crushingly slow postpandemic years, retail construction throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth region this year is on pace to hit its highest point since 2017.

The Metroplex will get around 2.9M SF of new retail space delivered by the end of the year, a total that is nearly double the 1.5M SF that was finished in the region last year.

The rise in construction comes amid strong demand for existing vacancies. DFW maintained its record 95.1% occupancy after the first six months of 2025, according to Weitzman’s midyear occupancy report.

“We're going to continue to see good leasing, and we'll see increased occupancy,” Weitzman Executive Chairman Herb Weitzman told Bisnow. “We're getting to where we're pretty full, which is good.”

Strong demand for retail space was evident in the region’s high occupancy rate despite marketwide vacancies created by the national failures of retail chains such as Big Lots, Joann, Conn’s and Party City.

Weitzman credited the boom in retail construction to grocery stores, as chains like H-E-B and Walmart expand into the Metroplex’s fastest-growing suburbs. H-E-B has three stores of more than 130K SF set to be delivered this year as well as seven more stores on the way in the years ahead.

More than 87% of the retail construction to be delivered this year is for anchor space, according to the report. That means there won’t be a lot of new construction available for lease by newcomers to the metro.

Despite new construction, the half-year increase in deliverables is still a conservative figure for a market with record-high occupancy and continued population growth, according to the report.

“If we continue with the number, or anywhere close to the number, of in-migrations, there's still a lot of momentum,” Weitzman said of the region’s occupancy rate. “As people move here, that’s the big driver of additional [retail] space.”

The last time the market broke 2M SF of new retail construction was in 2018, when about 2.8M SF was added. That came one year after a high of 3.2M SF built in 2017.

Much of the construction boom is population-driven. The Metroplex was third on a list of the fastest-growing metros in the country from 2023 to 2024. DFW now has more than 8.3 million residents.

In addition to grocery-anchored retail centers, Weitzman’s report says large-format entertainment options at mixed-use projects will help drive leasing demand in the months ahead.

The highest profile of those is the 100K SF Netflix House to open later this year at the Galleria Dallas. Dick’s House of Sport, the sporting goods retailer’s new experiential concept, will also backfill a pair of former Sears stores at malls in Arlington and Frisco.

Main Event plans to open a 59K SF family entertainment location at the former Sears store at Town East Mall in Mesquite.