Mark Brodie/KJZZ

Downtown Gilbert has stand-alone buildings, which house locally-owned shops and restaurants.

(Courtesy of CBRE Research)

During the first half of this year, the southeast Valley led the Phoenix metro area in retail construction, accounting for two-thirds of all new shopping centers. And, one community in particular is generating the most activity.

Between January and June, more than 3,000 new homes were being built in the southeast Valley, with a disproportionate share in the town of Gilbert. 

“That area is very high demand for families and with that comes high average household incomes as well which retailers like to follow,” said Greg Abbott, vice president with CBRE, a commercial real-estate firm.

Abbot said his firm tracks centers that are at least 20,000 square feet and expects that by the end of 2016, the southeast Valley will have added more retail than the last six years combined.  

“It’s really kind of a cross-section,” he said. “But the heart of it though are grocery anchored shopping centers.” 

While Gilbert is seeing more activity than other southeast Valley communities, Abbott said, “Number two would be Chandler or south Mesa, areas around Gilbert would be number two. Beyond that, the next general core area would be the southwest Valley, you know, west along the I-10 freeway where there’s also a lot of new homes being built out there.” 

As for the entire metro area, Abbott expects the Valley will add 1.7 million square feet of new retail this year. A big improvement, he said, over the last several years, but it still pales in comparison to the 12.3 million square feet in 2007 and the 9 million square feet of new retail in 2006 and 2008.