By: Paige Yowell , Omaha World-Herald
With bricks-and-mortar retail businesses under pressure, Grandscape — a huge, Berkshire Hathaway-backed development under construction in the Dallas area — is coming online at a precarious time.
But Grandscape, which will feature apartments, retail and entertainment, is bound to be a success even in these challenged retail waters. Just take it from the second-richest man in the world.
That would, of course, be Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, which also is the financial backer of the $1.5 billion, 430-acre project in The Colony, Texas, anchored by a Nebraska Furniture Mart store that opened in 2015.
Now under way is a new 90-acre lifestyle center. Grandscape also will include a boardwalk-inspired restaurant and entertainment district, apartments and offices.
The construction comes as the retail industry has been in a flux for the past few years, as bricks-and-mortar stores try to find their place in a world where more and more shoppers are buying clothes, technology, housewares and even food online.
Still, Buffett is bullish.