Pet Supermarket in Meyerland Plaza has reopened after taking on water after Hurricane Harvey, but it appears to be an exception among big-box stores lined in a row on the former mall site. Signs in front of Old Navy, OfficeMax, and Dressbarn declare the stores are closed — and direct customers to other locations, according to these photos and a report from a Swamplot reader. Here’s the scene in front of Old Navy, where notes in the window declare the store is closed “until further notice“:
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Here’s the view inside:
Dressbarn‘s front door:
And here’s a peek into OfficeMax:
Talbots and Charming Charlie are still closed as well, with notes out front promising they’ll reopen soon, according to this report from Leigh Frillici at Click2Houston.
Photos: Swamplot inbox
I still can’t figure out how Cafe Express, Best Buy, Pet Supermarket and some of the others didn’t take on enough water to close very long, if at all, and yet the store shown above got hammered.
I thought Charming Charlie’s was already open because they still had merchandise inside a few weeks ago, and the lights were on, but I didn’t get out of my car to walk up. I’d been thinking they must have had hella good waterproof doors. Dress Barn is part of a company that’s in the middle of a corporate reorg so I’m not sure if they *will* reopen. I asked at another Old Navy about the Meyerland status and a store manager shared that Meyerland hopes to re-open by Black Friday. They had ~3 feet of water inside the store.
Talbots cleared out all their merchandise along with Dress Barn and Old Navy.
@tinyvoices — I’ve wondered if Pet Supermarket emptied out their store ahead of the storm and then only had to dry out the floors and restock, because they were open pretty quickly. Cafe Express has tile floors, which helped, but I do wonder about how they got the kitchen dried out so fast.
I’d agree with the unevenness of how some stores in this row opened quickly and some are still shuttered.
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In a way, it is Store Darwinism in action: Cafe Express, Best Buy, and Pet Supermarket seem to have management who are on the ball and/or are motivated while the others are a bit sluggish or hamstrung by corporate bloat.
All of Meyerland is out of commission! ! My brother and sister-in-law are rebuilding a NEW house on the same lot , 4 feet above ground. NO one will buy the Meyerland / Bellaire area lots without intending to rebuild NEW, elevated homes. I’m going to move to Austin and be done with it. Houston is a sinking swamp which will be sea side land in about 20-30 years or so. The voters needs to PRESSURE the sleazy politicians to build a network of dykes & dams like the Netherlands did. Yeah it ‘ll be a hassle and cost Billions ,but that’ll be cheaper than continually rebuilding which is redundant anyway !
Best Buy peoples told me afterwards they only got a little water in the front. No damage, just had to dry the carpet nearest the door. Weird.
I saw a picture posted on Reddit of Best Buy they got at least 6″ to 8″ water inside anything less than that is pure BS