New Braunfels Retail Shell Adds 28,000 Square Feet Off SH 46 With No Tenants Named

A four-building retail shell worth an estimated $4.5 million is headed to Elley Lane near State Highway 46 South in New Braunfels, according to state filings, though no tenants have been announced for the project. The development, listed under the name NB Criest Investments, LLC, calls for two steel-framed buildings and two concrete tilt-wall buildings totaling 28,143 square feet of new commercial space, per filings with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.

The project, which as reported by MySA could bring nearly 30,000 square feet of new commercial space to the area, sits on private land near Elley Lane and SH 46, adjacent to the fast-growing Elley Lane Subdivision, also known as Elley Crossing, in Guadalupe County. Municipal planning records from the City of New Braunfels show the surrounding residential buildout straddles city limits and the extraterritorial jurisdiction off SH 46 South, an area where subdivisions have expanded rapidly over the past five years. MySA reported it reached out to NB Criest Investments for development and tenant information but had not received a response at the time of publication.

No Tenants Named, No Opening Date Set

Per state filings, construction on the Elley Lane Retail Center is scheduled to begin November 2, 2026, with completion targeted for July 5, 2027. The filing does not list retailers, restaurants, or other planned businesses, and no official opening date has been announced. MySA's reporting notes that TDLR filings are subject to change without notice, meaning the timeline and scope could shift before shovels hit the ground.

The project's four-building, retail-shell approach mirrors a pattern already playing out just down the road. Drago Development registered a similarly speculative $4.0 million, 24,000-square-foot project known as the Klein Road Retail Shell in April 2025 at Klein Road and Pahmeyer Road in Guadalupe County, according to Zabalist. That project later secured a planned 4,146-square-foot McDonald's drive-thru, set to break ground in December 2026 — a tenant announcement Hoodline covered in its piece on the sixth New Braunfels McDonald's.

A Tight Retail Market Fuels Speculative Building

Building first and leasing later has become the default strategy in New Braunfels, where citywide retail vacancy dropped to a historically low 1.5% in 2025, according to the Greater New Braunfels Retail Study. Net tenant absorption has kept pace with new commercial deliveries across a trade area of nearly 500,000 regional residents, leaving expanding retail and dining businesses waiting on new shell space to open up. That squeeze was central to Hoodline's recent report on how New Braunfels' tight retail market and rising lease rates pushed Sip-N-Putt across I-35 in search of bigger digs.

Behind the retail crunch is explosive population growth. U.S. Census Bureau estimates put New Braunfels' population at 122,492 residents by 2025, up sharply from 90,403 recorded in the 2020 Census, keeping the city among the fastest-growing mid-sized cities in the nation. That growth has already drawn national chains to the SH 46 South corridor near Elley Lane — Whataburger opened its fourth New Braunfels location at 1825 State Highway 46 South in December, a milestone Hoodline covered in its report on the chain's burger boom along SH 46.

Highway Widening Follows the Rooftops

The commercial rush along SH 46 is unfolding alongside a massive public infrastructure push. The Texas Department of Transportation is advancing a $1.4 billion expansion of a 10.4-mile stretch of SH 46 connecting New Braunfels and Seguin across Comal and Guadalupe counties, aiming to widen the corridor for surging commuter traffic between I-35 and I-10, according to Government Market News. Hoodline detailed the scope of that project earlier this year in its coverage of the $1.4B SH 46 highway plan.

TxDOT has already completed $2 million in immediate safety enhancements along SH 46 in early 2025 and secured $7 million in federal Highway Safety Improvement Program funds for dedicated left-turn lanes and intersection widenings, with construction slated to start in late 2027, Fox 7 Austin reports. Those upgrades follow data showing 244 reported crashes on the corridor between 2021 and 2025. Separately, the City of New Braunfels has committed municipal funds under voter-approved Proposition A transportation bonds to reconstruct major intersections along SH 46 West, adding turn lanes, mast-arm traffic signals, and emergency vehicle prioritization systems, according to the city's own project records.

The Elley Lane project adds to a broader wave of retail construction reshaping New Braunfels, from the 400-acre Town Center at Creekside, which is adding a 25,000-square-foot Nordstrom Rack, to the 2,400-acre Mayfair development, which brought in a 160,000-square-foot Costco warehouse and launched its Midtown Mayfair commercial district this summer. For now, the Elley Lane Retail Center remains a shell without a tenant list, its future occupants as unannounced as its opening date.