“We would deliver the packages dressed in our Bear Creek bear costumes,” Murphy said. “Their doorbell cameras would catch a bear dropping off their package.”
Bear Creek Running Co. was among the many businesses that shifted to delivery services during the pandemic. Now, people have come back to buy shoes in person, Murphy said.
“People have become so reliant on online [shopping],” Murphy said. “But I think a lot of people experimented with online [shopping] and found out you don’t necessarily get the right shoe for your foot.”
That return to in-person shopping is something Weitzman, a Texas-based commercial real estate firm, said is happening throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
“We’re in a much better place today [than March 2020],” Weitzman Executive Vice President Michelle Caplan said during the firm’s annual forecast, which was livestreamed in January. “We’ve navigated risk and achieved one of the greatest market turnarounds ever.”
As part of its report, Weitzman noted construction of new business space was at an all-time low in 2021 with 640,000 square feet added. That was nearly half the previous record low of 1.2 million square feet built in 2012, according to Matthew Rosenfeld, Weitzman executive vice president and director of DFW brokerage. However, increased demand for retail space and rising occupancy rates are expected to help turn things around in 2022, according to the forecast.
“Based on what’s in the pipeline, we expect [brand new] construction to total approximately 2 million square feet [in 2022],” Caplan said.
The Weitzman forecast also found retail occupancy was at 93.5% throughout the region at the end of 2021. That rate was the third-highest total the firm has recorded for DFW, just below its previously recorded highs of nearly 94% in 2019 and almost 95% in 1981.
The firm’s data is based on more than 1,400 shopping centers totaling more than 200 million square feet of retail space across the metroplex. Weitzman’s forecast for this year expects retail occupancy to increase to 95%.The retail leasing market was also the third strongest the firm has seen in 22 years, according to Rosenfeld.
“This is [a] complete reversal from 2020, when pandemic-related closures resulted in vacancy jumping by more than 4 million square feet,” Rosenfeld said at the January event. “Now our numbers [going into 2022] look remarkably like those of prepandemic 2019—one of the best years ever for our retail market.”
Adapting in northeast Fort Worth
To avoid the setbacks of occupancy restrictions put in place due to the pandemic, Fort Worth started its Pilot Parklet/Street Patio Program in June 2020 to help businesses expand their seating capacity, said Chelsea St. Louis, Fort Worth chief transportation planning officer. A parklet is a pedestrian area made by extending the sidewalk into on-street parking spaces to add seating and other amenities, according to a Feb. 24 online post from the city.
Although the parklet program was meant to be a temporary fix, the program was formalized Feb. 1 because of business interest, according to a Fort Worth City Council memo. While the majority of the parklets are near Magnolia Avenue, which is south of downtown Fort Worth, the program is open to all businesses throughout the city.
“The benefit [of parklets] is you are creating an environment that’s more pedestrian friendly, [and] that has the potential to bring additional foot traffic to your businesses,” St. Louis said.
Other eateries had to immediately embrace curbside pickup and delivery services, such as DoorDash and Grubhub, said Jeff Lowery, operating partner for Horizon 76 in Keller. He and his business partner opened the restaurant in June 2020 amid the pandemic.
But what really made the difference for the restaurant was building a large outdoor patio, especially when occupancy restrictions at the beginning of the pandemic allowed for only 50% capacity, Lowery said.
“We could spread people out,” Lowery said.
‘Tech and mortar’
Metroport Chamber President and CEO Sally Aldridge said she found herself in awe of the ways businesses learned to “pivot and survive” during the pandemic.
“Virtual changes—like virtual meetings, appointments and telehealth along with developing online e-commerce—if [they were] not already in existence, for businesses [they were all] extremely impactful,” Aldridge said.
Weitzman’s Rosenfeld said grocery stores throughout the region have led the way in using digital tools to help physical retailers meet changing customer needs. That is an approach Weitzman refers to as “tech and mortar.”
“Without a doubt, COVID[-19] has transformed grocery shoppers’ behavior, and brick-and-mortar locations [that] are offering delivery and curbside pickup [are] benefiting,” Rosenfeld said.
The demand for Walmart’s pickup and delivery services has led the company to increase its order fulfillment capacity by 40% over the last two years, according to Lauren Willis, the retailer’s communications director for Texas.
“The pandemic permanently changed how customers shop,” she said via email.
To help meet customers’ new shopping patterns, Walmart is adding market fulfillment centers to many existing stores, including ones in Plano and Lewisville. These centers will help meet the demand for Walmart’s contactless pickup and delivery services in those cities and throughout the metroplex.
“Think of [these market fulfillment centers] as a condensed, modular warehouse in a number of Walmart stores across the country,” Willis said.
Bouncing back
Despite the pandemic, Murphy was able to upsize Bear Creek Running Co. by moving to a larger Keller storefront in March 2021.
Horizon 76 has found to-go orders are becoming “a growing subset” of its sales, Lowery said. The restaurant owner plans to build as many as five more locations throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area in years to come.
But it is not completely back to normal, as Murphy pointed out in regards to supply chain issues. He said about 80% of the product the business usually sees is still not back, and distributors have told him it will probably be another six months before it is back to normal.
“Our continuing struggle now is the fallout from factories being closed, and the shipping lanes are all messed up, and the distribution has just been a nightmare,” Murphy said.
Lowery said Horizon 76 has battled the “ups and downs” of the pandemic and its variants on customers coming back in person.
“Recently, [there] was the omicron [variant] after the holidays,” Lowery said. “So you’ll find these little dips.”
Aldridge said many changes businesses made due to the pandemic could be here to stay.
“Businesses were forced to adapt to a new way of doing business, and [it] may affect business culture permanently,” Aldridge said. “Time will tell.”