By Kate King | Wall Street Journal
Nearly every real-estate developer is steering clear of building new retail real estate these days. Not Joshua Simon.
The 39-year-old Scottsdale, Ariz.-based real-estate investor has built 2.6 million square feet of ground-up retail since 2018, including the largest shopping center developed in the Western half of the U.S. over the past seven years.
He is preparing to start construction on roughly another 1.5 million more square feet over the next year in Arizona, Idaho, Missouri, Indiana, New Mexico and Tennessee, betting that public incentives and local financing can make his plan to build more shopping centers work.
His company has already spent more than $1 billion building retail, and Simon expects to spend another half-billion dollars by the end of 2026.
It is a risky bet. Most real-estate investors believe it is too expensive to build new retail right now, even though retail vacancy is hovering near record-low levels and rents have been rising steadily in recent years.
