18-Month Owner Selling 108-Acre Retail Tract

ROSENBERG, TX-A local investor wishing to take advantage of escalating land prices in booming Fort Bend County has put 108 acres of retail land on the market. A local expert familiar with the area says the seller most likely will get close to the $18-million ask for the land.

Bernie Fredregill with B.W. Development Co. says he and his partners had acquired the land about 18 months ago. The acreage along Reading Road and US Hwy. 59 has been put up for sale because of other land commitments and developments in the area, he says, declining to say what they’d paid for the site.

“The ideal buyer for this would be a shopping center developer,” Fredregill says, pointing out that the parcel is across the street from the two-million-sf Rosenberg Town Center that’s currently under construction. He says splitting the land is a possibility, but the preference is to sell it as a whole. Fredregill says he’s received a great deal of interest in the parcel.

Bill Heavin, senior vice president with Grubb & Ellis Co. in Houston, tells GlobeSt.com that until recently, land prices in the submarket hovered around $2 per sf. “He could likely be getting around $3 per sf or more at this point,” Heavin says. He isn’t uninvolved with Fredregill’s sale, but he’s been actively buying and selling land in the area. “For the price he’s asking, it likely has no entitlement issues,” he adds.

Despite the parcel’s size, it isn’t the largest that’s been brought to market in recent months. Still, Heavin says Fredregill’s land is in a good location, with a lot of big box retail development taking place in and around the submarket. “The sprawl out of Houston has gradually crossed the Brazos and descended on the Richmond-Rosenberg area,” he says. “A lot of that land just sat there for years and interest exploded in the area during the past 24 months.”