BAYTOWN, TEXAS — Fidelis Realty Partners has broken ground on the redevelopment of San Jacinto Mall, a regional shopping mall located roughly 25 miles east of Houston in Baytown.
Dubbed San Jacinto Marketplace, the current phase of development will include 500,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space alongside Pelican Green, a public green space. The development in total is expected to span 105 acres and include residential, hospitality and office components upon completion.
Fidelis originally purchased 40 acres of the mall property, which opened in 1981, in July 2015 with a goal of owning 100 percent of the land for redevelopment. This process took Fidelis six years, with the final buildings — which were occupied by JCPenney and Macy’s — acquired by the locally-based firm in 2021.
The mall officially stopped operations in 2022, and Fidelis concurrently signed an agreement with the City of Baytown to pay $3.5 million as compensation and reimbursement as the project is being redeveloped.
A timeline for the development was not announced, but Fidelis notes that the property will be home to somewhere between 15 and 20 restaurants with 10 major leases currently being negotiated.
“We have been faced with a number of challenges to bring this project to this point, and we are thrilled to be moving forward on the redevelopment,” says Fidelis CEO Alan Hassenflu. “The mall was 1.5 million square feet. Our shopping center is going to be just over half-a-million square feet, and I bet it does five times more in sales than the mall did in its best year.”
Houston-based Fidelis is one of the largest commercial real estate companies in the state of Texas. The firm focuses on retail, healthcare, multifamily and industrial properties and currently owns, leases and manages 24 million square feet of commercial real estate across 14 states.
— Katie Sloan