(Seguin) — Seguin Crossroads Shopping Courts has been sold. A Houston based commercial real estate investment group PBC Interests, led by Joan Collum and Stephen Pheigaru have purchased the Seguin Crossroads Shopping Center located at 1500 E. Court Street, their second retail acquisition during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The property, built in 1985, was formerly called Five Courts Mall. Plans are in place to redevelop the 126,000 square foot regional shopping center to include painting the exterior, new lighting, reconfiguration of the parking layout, and tenant sign bands. PBC Interests is now in discussion with national, regional, and local tenants and anticipates completion of the redevelopment and tenant’s opening in the Spring of 2023.
Josh Schneuker, director of Seguin’s Economic Development Corporations says located in the heart of Seguin’s primary retail node, the Seguin Crossroads Shopping Center features excellent visibility to more than 20,000 vehicles that drive by the Center’s frontage along State Highway 123 Bypass daily.
“I think it’s great news for Seguin. With all the growth that we are seeing in our community right now. We desperately need more commercial real estate, some opportunities for targeted retailers to locate at and this is one of the shopping centers that we feel along with the new owners that has a ton of potential and a ton of upside. Historically, it hasn’t really had the best upkeep. You can drive by it now. You are starting to slowly see some things. There’s been some new landscaping put in but if you drive pass the shopping center, the first thing you notice is how empty it is and I really think that with this new ownership group in place – you know this is their bread and butter — they have experience in commercial real estate. They go out and acquire properties. They develop properties. They are working with very reputable commercial real estate, top team marketing companies to target retailers,” said Schneuker.
Collum says her company is thrilled to have acquired the Seguin Crossroads Shopping Center.
She says she has been interested in the Seguin market for years and always had her eye on Seguin Crossroads. When it became available, she says it was a major focus for them to acquire this property.
Schneuker says the city’s first introduction with Collum actually took place at a retail conference where the EDC was exhibiting at. He says Collum who is from Houston was familiar with Seguin but was only limited to knowing it when driving through it on I-10 and had never really seen the heart of the city.
“At the conference, we invited her and her colleagues to come out and visit Seguin and we showed her around and she was just really impressed at that time with the amount of activity that Seguin had and we were driving around town probably about 1 or 2 in the afternoon and she was just really impressed with the traffic, the employers that we had here, the growth that we were experiencing on the housing side and then I think that really started to peak the interest in the Seguin market and it was really just a matter of continuing to stay in touch, build that relationship and when this opportunity presented itself and Joan and her team, they were really on top of it from the start and trying to get the property under contract. With all the growth that we continue to see, it just made the deal make that much sense for Joan and the team to close the deal and purchase the shopping center because of the upside that they believe that it had and that redeveloping the center would really help fill a void in the retailers that we have here by adding a real descent property and they are really our highest traffic retailer in the city,” said Schneuker.
Schneuker says with all the growth that the city is experiencing, quality retail space on the 123 Corridor in Seguin is in high demand. The redevelopment of this shopping center, he says, will create opportunities for new retailers to enter the Seguin market.
“There are working with Edge Realty Partners at Houston. They are actively marketing the property to targeted retailers both that are nationally known and regionally known so this is an opportunity to really bring in some name brand retailers into the city but with the retail space that we have available at that shopping center right now – when they purchase the center, the occupancy was about 32 percent, and the hope is to bring that number up substantially. That is incredibly low occupancy. I think getting this property in the hands of a very experienced commercial real estate team, working in partnership with the city and the EDC to market to targeted retailers, I think we are going to have some pretty big tenants that we can hopefully get to fill this space as this project continues to grow and expand,”’ said Schneuker.
He says the city’s booming residential activity, paired with the new jobs being created across the region no doubt helped make Seguin a prime location for this specific investment.
Schneuker says Seguin’s Retail Trade Area Population is more than 120,000 and serves as the retail hub for portions of Guadalupe, Gonzales, and Wilson Counties. He says the city remains to be one of the only major retail stops between San Antonio and Houston on the Interstate 10 corridor.
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