Kroger has bought 8.5 acres of former industrial land on Studemont, just south of I-10, the Chronicle‘s Purva Patel reports. The land, which was once part of Houston’s Sixth Ward, sits just north of Arne’s Warehouse and Party Store and across the street from Grocers Supply. Kroger closed on the larger portion — a 7.2-acre cleared parcel at 1400 Studewood, listed for sale at $15.7 million — just last week. A spokesperson for the grocery chain wasn’t ready to announce a new store on the site, but did say the company had already taken possession of 1.3 acres just to the south, at 1200 Givens St. If Kroger does build a new supermarket there, the parking lot would have 450 ft. of frontage on Studemont; other industrial properties, many of them accessed from Summer St., would still be sandwiched between it and the Sawyer Heights Target.
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- A new Kroger near the Heights? [Prime Property]
Images: Wheless Properties
So, that again begs the question…what are the plans for the 20th St. Kroger, rumored to be taking over the former Walgreens space to make a larger Kroger? That would make the area awfully Kroger-Heavy…11th St, 20th St., Studemont, W. Gray.
Praise sweet baby Jesus, our Old 6th Ward prayers have been answered.
Damn you suburban style development! Damn you!
Why do we need five Krogers within 5 miles of each other?
Mel,
Because if you add all five together you may get one half decent grocery.
Craig
The Heights doesn’t need ANOTHER Kroger. Get us an HEB like the one on Bissonet and Buffalo Spdwy!!
Kroger overload…..
Mel – so that Kroger can close two other stores in neighborhoods that need (and supported) a decent store.
Dammit I was hoping wal-mart was going to build a SAM’s club there…
Yay, all the development with none of the WalMart style morass/elitist moaning and groaning. Good to see this put to better use, now please fix that abysmal sidewalk, thanks big K.
#4 Mel,
For the same reason you need 3 Walmarts within easy driving distance!
So I’m guessing that little strip on the NE side of the lot would be an access road off the new I-10 feeder? If/when this does become a Kroger I hope that is the case, because Studemontrose will become quite the mess if local traffic and trucks have to compete for the same turning lanes.
oops,scratch that. doesn’t look long enough to reach the new feeder.
How disappointing, instead of a nice HEB like the one on Bunker Hill we get another crappy Kroger along with another overpriced Whole Foods.
The area may be “Kroger Heavy” but honestly I live about 2 minutes drive north of this site and going to get groceries is a pain in the butt. None of the stores are quick and easy to get to but for the Fiesta on 14th. Options would be nice. West Gray Kroger after work is horrible even though it is just under 3 miles. Not a stop I want to put on my route home which is already annoying. Studemont and I-10 would be handy!
#1 – Emme
I drove by the 20th St. Kroger the other day and there was a For Lease sign, that I assumed was for the spot that the Walgreen’s previously occupied. So Kroger may not be updating/enlarging that location after all.
I have the same question about the 20th St. Kroger. Are there any plans for a renovation??? It’s a DUMP and I only go there b/c it’s so convenient to our home. I have also heard there were plans to put a Goodwill store in the old Walgreen’s space next door. Seriously? The Heights is in bad need of nicer grocery stores. 11th St. Kroger is a CF and always crowded. An HEB would be fantastic. Why are they not taking the opportunity for some major business in the area?
HEB tried for the location of the Heights Walmart, but lost out to Walmart. Maybe 20th St. Kroger will go away and HEB could close their 20th St. existing store and move there. ***dreaming***
The same reason we need 6 Whole Foods within 5 miles of each other
The master plan to wall off the Heights from the less-touchy parts of town continues, using cruddy retailers as a “moat”.
Yale, then Studemont…
Wow – a Central Market would have been nice. Plenty of Kroger to go around, would not be surprised to see a store close elsewhere.
All you cry babies crying for “nice” stores that meet your high standards should consider moving somewhere that is actually considered nice.
While I appreciate the history and preservation vibe in The Heights, the area is still very hit and miss with many parts still in transition if you will.
Granted, there are some true gems, but do you really expect a WF or CM to take that risk yet?
Kroger is so ghetto.
HEB is getting squeezed by the big boys. The land cost is just too much for a regional player like HEB. Kroger and Walmart are flexing their muscles to keep HEB out of the Heights. Kroger will hold on to the crappy 20th st as long as they can to keep their virtual monopoly on the Heights. In the mean time, the I-10 corridor along the Heights will be a virtual no go zone during rush hour thanks to TxDOT putting in feeder roads without upgrading the bridges to allow expansion of the Studewood/Yale and Heights and I-10 feeder intersections.
Who knows what Swamplot means or refers to?
“The land cost is just too much for a regional player like HEB.”
Couldn’t the same be said about the site for HEB’s planned store on Alabama in Montrose? I’m pretty sure HEB has sufficient resources to open up stores wherever it thinks it can compete.
@Craig – yeah, Kroger just abandoned my ‘hood. Now we’re stuck with the truly awful.
@markd – you apparently haven’t experienced ghetto yet. Food Town anyone?
Hooray! Live in 3rd Ward, work in 6th. It’ll be really nice to have a Kroger near work for mid-week groceries. Really wish there were better (any) grocery stores near my hood. Someday….
Craig: Whole Foods opened a store in my old DC neighborhood – so transitional the the Heights, by comparison, is Beverly Hills – and it was one of the most successful store openings in their history.
I’m pretty surprised at how long it’s taken them to locate anywhere near the Heights – it’s a natural for them.
Ian: No. The Motrose location is heavily land locked with very poor highway access. Sq ft price to be within a stones throw of I-10 is above $50 per sq ft. And the Montrose acquisition may have left them with a hole in their pocket.
Word on the street is that HEB got outbid by Walmart for Yale St. I do not know if they were in the running for Sudewood, but doubt they would be for above $50 per sq ft.
HEB is a big company, but not as big as Kroger (and is tiny compared to Walmart).
With all the big houses going up in Oak Forest, one would have thought the former Food Land (?) on Ella between 34th & Judiway would have been snapped up by HEB. I heard they can’t expand the 18th St. Pantry store because of flood regulations.
this store will only serve the area north of memorial. i live close to Dallas/Gray and Montrose and will still go to the West Gray Kroger location (and WF), because i can get there with no lights on Clay and only two stop signs. this one will be a nightmare to get to with Montrose traffic…
Kroger’s ‘flagship’ store on 11th is the closest to us, but we make a weekly trek to HEB @ Bunker Hill to do our major grocery shopping. HEB’s produce & meat selection is much better and generally fresher. If that weren’t enough, prices are usually lower at HEB, and no stupid store card to deal with.
The Heights had an HEB. It was on 11th between Yale and Shepherd. Worst excuse for a grocery store EVER. Expired food on the shelves, rank smells from the meat and dairy cases, obvious rodent detritus. It was torn down and a Regions Bank went up.
HEB is getting squeezed by the big boys. The land cost is just too much for a regional player like HEB. Kroger and Walmart are flexing their muscles to keep HEB out of the Heights.
-While HEB isnt as big as Kroger or Walmart, they are still the 11th largest private company in the US, according to Forbes. They operate over 315 stores.
Make no mistake, they have deep ass pockets.
Some of you people have lost your mind. Kroger is a great store, and if it’s built there it will be large nice and new probably similar to the Buffalo Speedway Kroger. Please refrain from complaining about good news y’all are starting to sound like snobs. Anyway I agree with the post Oak Forest needs another grocery store.
Whole Foods was originally looking at this Studemont location when they chose the Waugh Dr. location.
The HEB on 20th St, a few weeks before they closed, sent out a notice that they had “renovated” the store. I was so excited, I rushed over, and all they had done was slap some new paint over old interior paint (didn’t even sand so very ugly paint job) and moved some produce displays to the front. Same rusty refrigerator cases and dinghy surroundings.
Ryan: There are big ass pockets and then there is Kroger and Walmart. Kroger has 2,468 stores and a market capitalization of 14.2 billion. Walmart has 803 discount stores, 2,747 supercenters, 158 neighborhood markets, and 596 Sam’s Clubs in the United States; 43 units in Argentina, 434 in Brazil, 317 in Canada, 252 in Chile, 170 in Costa Rica, 77 in El Salvador, 164 in Guatemala, 53 in Honduras, 1 in India, 371 in Japan, 1,469 in Mexico, 55 in Nicaragua, 56 in Puerto Rico, and 371 in the United Kingdom, as well as 279 stores in the Peoples Republic of China. Its market capitalization is just over 200 billion. HEB does not have the resources that Kroger and Walmart have to out bid them for a hot location. But the people at HEB are smart. They will find a cost effective location in the Heights eventually. But not as long as the big boys show up to bid.
@ Old School, you might want to take a quick drive down by Stude some time. Both feeder bridges over the Bayou have been torn down and are in the process of being replaced.
What surprises me the most is that Japan has 371 ‘units’. How large is a ‘unit’? Surely not supercenters.
Jimbo: I am talking about the actual highway bridge over yale and Studemont, not the feeder. Look at the supports for the highway at Studemont and Yale. They are too close together to add lanes (might be able to squeeze one extra in at Yale, but no plans for that). All this development puts extreme pressure on intersections that cannot be widened without reconstructing the bridge (I-10). The reason they are not reconstructing those bridges is because the project was slapped together last minute when stimulus funds became available. I-10 outside the loop gets reconstructed bringes and plenty of turn lanes for north south intersections. Inside the loop, we don’t get crap.
The 11th street Kroger is only a short drive up Shepherd for me, but I still go to the HEB off Bunker Hill. Better produce, better meat, and cheaper prices. And no stinking keep track of your customers card to mess with. I wouldn’t be suprised to find out that Kroger’s building this store in an attempt to keep HEB out.
Krogersaturation.
Abort.
Abort.
Abort.
Well, bless your little hearts — you’re complaining about too many Kroger stores too close together in your area?
The only regular grocery store we have to serve EaDo, the UH area and the entire Near East End is Kombat Kroger on Cullen @ Polk.
This is the closest a new grocery story will ever get to North Side. But will take it. Muchas gracias, Kroger.
On behalf of the hundreds of senior citizens who live in the two mid-rises a block from the Kroger on 20th – will some grocer PLEEEEZE take that spot? They need a place they can walk to! HEB? Even a Pantry beats nothing!
This will be an advantage to those living downtown, competition for the mini-Randalls.
Actually the project had been sitting already put together for years waiting for the funding to come along. If you are suggesting that it would be better to have the mega width of I-10 outside the loop going all the way across the center then I would have to disagree. Besides, I’m assuiming thats why all of the widening is happening around 610. The goal is to push thru traffic to take 610 around rather than going through downtown on freeways that can never be made wide enough to carry the load because of existing development.
@Jimbo, I think what Old School is trying to explain is that Studemont and Yale never got the special treatment that Antoine and Silber got when I 10 was reconstructed, for example. If you look at those underpasses, there is plenty of room if the need ever arises that either Antoine or Silber can expand to 3 lanes in each direction with a center median without having to do any major reconstruction to I 10.
so the Target on Sawyer is going to have a fresh grocery section, I think I heard that the Heights Wal-Mart is going to have grocery section, and now a Kroger on Studemont. Food saturation for the Heights and north Montrose. Meanwhile, areas of the Third Ward and Greater Fifth Ward/Kashmere Gardens remain a food desert, as illustrated by this map on Super Houston, http://superhouston.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/houston-desertia/
@ Old School: I am very aware of how big Kroger’s and Walmart are. What I am also aware of is that HEB is currently pursuing the Market concept and is picky on demographics, as these stores cater to an affluent crowd.
They may not have gotten the site simply because they dont want it. That area caters to a young professional crowd, which is intermingled with a historically low income population.
The three newest (one of those to be built) HEBs in the Houston area are in West University, Memorial and Montrose. I don’t think anyone here needs the differences between those neighborhoods and the Washington Avenue Corridor/South Heights population.
HEB cures cancer …. Kroger…. ehhh not so much.
When HEB opens a store, the industrial land will become designated green space, the gumbo underneath the ground will stabilize, and the sun will shine. I think they even will inspire new lines of mass transit to sprout, rainwater to be collected and recycled, and the architecture will be like seeing a double rainbow.
Kroger is evil, investing in the neighborhood and providing stores on local streets rather than the interstate. Their shopping carts are not jumbo sized, they don’t offer bill-pay stations…they don’t even have doc in a box or cash for gold at the front of their stores.
Oh, and clearly Whole Foods sucks. I can’t even get the peanut butter in a bucket there my kids crave.
Just think about the uproar over the Walmart, they were just jumping into the mix. The Houston Heights, the place where everyone wants to be, including all national big boxes. Just think about the traffic around Halloween with Party Boy across the street.
I need some of your optimistic kool-aid…
I guess we’re going to find out where all those hotties that shop at Posh Kroger really live. Posh Kroger = My Kroger. I’m not driving right past it to shop at Arne’s Party Kroger, but if it takes away my eye candy I will not be happy.
i also drive several miles (and pass several krogers) to shop at the HEB on bunker hill.
i went into 11th street kroger once after the renovations, the pathetic attempts to imitate HEB made me chuckle..
I would sooner drive to the royal oaks HEB on westheimer@kirkwood than shop at kroger. I shop at walmart frequently, not trying to be a snob, its just that kroger sucks..
After 18 months of negotiating with the delvelopers, HEB chose not to exercise it’s option on the Yale Washington Heights site. Supposedly HEB’s reasoning was that they could not make money in the Heights.
#58
Seriously?
The former Food Land on Ella & Judiway will reportedly become….a mini-storage. *sigh*
Sounds like a smart business plan given the proximity of the location to a large number of people who will now be unable to economically or usably expand their homes.
ME WANT THE TO BUILD A BUMBLE BEE PARK THERE!!!!! BZZZZZ BZZZZZ BZZZZZZZ
Oak Forest?? It’s a developer’s naughty fishnet hose and mayonnaise dream, if one can make inroads on Mel Reyna.