As Plano ages, officials reconsider city’s overabundance of retail
Alan Shor, an adjunct teaching real estate at SMU's Cox School of Business, talks about state of existing retail in Plano, Texas.
By THEODORE KIM
With about 400 football fields of retail space, Plano has no shortage of shopping. The question now is whether the city has too much....
Alan Shor, a Dallas-area retail consultant, thinks Plano City Hall will play less of a role in revitalizing the city’s intersections. The marketplace will balance itself.
He noted that older intersection-based shopping plazas in established communities like North and East Dallas continue to thrive, in large part because the residential neighborhoods around them remain strong. Shor also advised against rezoning too much land since radical changes can scare off builders and upset neighbors.
“Eventually, the market will take care of itself,” said Shor, who also teaches real estate and urban land economics at Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business.
“Yes, some of the retail will not be able to survive,” he added. “But then the retail space will get redeployed to some other use, whether its medical, government-related, education-related or green space. That’s the evolution.”