Stephen J. Pheigaru is Managing Partner and co-founder of Palo Duro Commercial Partners, a commercial real estate firm he founded along with his partner Jeffrey S. Hayes in 2022. The focus of the firm is retail focused brokerage, development, and investment opportunities, and Stephen oversees property acquisitions, dispositions, debt/equity financing, and the development & project leasing team.

Stephen has been actively involved in commercial real estate for 17 years, although he grew up in the industry with his father acting as a CEO for a large private Commercial Real Estate firm over the past 35 years.

He began his career with a Houston based private commercial real estate investment company handling project leasing and management of a 2 million square foot retail portfolio. Stephen has handled the acquisition process and their subsequent transactions of over $350 million worth of retail properties throughout his career. Stephen was instrumental in orchestrating debt/equity financing for many of those acquisitions, developments, and existing portfolio assets. In addition, Stephen in his early career worked on facilitating the asset management of the retail portfolio including underwriting, tenant relations, facilities management, preventive maintenance and accounting.

Stephen aligned with Hunington Properties, Inc. as Director of Retail Development in 2014, and soon thereafter became a Development Partner, where he focused on developing retail centers and creating build to suits and/or ground leases throughout the Texas market.

Over the past 15 years, he has been a part in 50+ developments and is an owner/General Partner in over 400,000sf of active retail developments/investments. Among his many accomplishments, Stephen was recently awarded the Economic Impact Award for a successful redevelopment of a 125,000-sf retail center in Seguin, Texas.

Aside from Commercial real estate, he serves the local community though his involvement with the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, The Graeme McDaniel Foundation, and The Halo House Foundation. He spends his free time golfing, hunting, running and being involved in sports with his two sons.