NewQuest Breaks Ground on $400M Mixed-Use Project

January 28, 2025

Mixed Use Development Featured Houston More News Retail Southwest

Construction on the retail portion of the suburban development is underway.

NewQuest has begun construction on the retail portion of Texas Heritage Marketplace, a planned $400 million mixed-use development in Katy, Texas.

The Texas Heritage Marketplace mixed-use development in Katy, Texas. *Image courtesy of NewQuest*. *Image courtesy of NewQuest*

The Texas Heritage Marketplace name applies to both the 750,000-square-foot regional shopping center and to the larger mixed-use project, which will eventually also encompass 550 apartments in two communities, plus almost 300,000 square feet of medical office space and self storage units.

The 165-acre site is at the southeast corner of I-10 and Texas Heritage Parkway.

NewQuest’s own architectural team aimed at creating a walkable environment with ample green space. The focus of this is a huge Heritage oak tree that was saved from the path of the recently completed parkway and relocated to the center of the development. (The Heritage oak is a hybrid of the English oak (Quercus robur) and the Bur oak (Q. macrocarpa).

NewQuest reportedly has spent about 10 years preparing for this project, biding its time till the right point in the area’s rapid population growth—56 percent since 2020—and until the 6.5-mile Texas Heritage Parkway was completed. The latest trigger was the developer having secured Target as a 149,000-square-foot anchor tenant.

Patience is a virtue

Texas Heritage Marketplace might be part of a pattern for NewQuest. In the 1990s the developer acquired a 65-acre site in Tomball, Texas, also in metro Houston, but didn’t break ground on The Grand at 249, a 404,256-square-foot retail center there, until years later. In October 2023, Commercial Property Executive reported that the center had reached 96 percent preleasing.

Metro Houston’s overall economy is doing well, with job growth of 1.8 percent, above the national average 1.4 percent, year-over-year, according to a fourth-quarter report from Cushman & Wakefield.

The retail market, naturally, is thriving. Though average vacancy bumped up slightly, to 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter, closing 2024 significantly below historical averages.

In the Katy submarket specifically, vacancy was 4.7 percent on an inventory of 31.4 million square feet. Asking rents were up a landlord-pleasing 7.3 percent year-over-year, to $24.82 NNN asking, Cushman & Wakefield reported.