Lovett has been dropping a few crumbs regarding the selection of restaurants and shops that will fringe the parking lot of the retail development planned for the former Fingers Furniture warehouse site on Cullen Blvd., across I-45 from the University of Houston’s main campus. No anchor tenant for the site has officially named (though talk of Walmart has made its way to several tipsters in the Eastwood Civic Association this spring, along with assurances that the marker memorializing the former site of Buffalo Stadium’s home plate will likely be preserved).
A site plan from December (shown above, with north angled roughly toward the top right corner) shows several pad sites along the feeder road marked up as QSR (presumably Quick Service Restaurant). A later sketch now up on Lovett’s website as well adds more clues, however — including  a cryptic label on what could be the first Starbucks to venture into the East End:
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The drive-thru pad site marked SBUX sits along Hussion St. on the site of a former Furniture Bank warehouse, across Winchester St. from the Guandi Buddhist temple. The flier also depicts an extension of Winchester roughly parallel to I-45, and a bike rental spot tucked next to the Fenix Estates apartment complex, which will be largely geared toward permanently housing formerly homeless folks:
Moving further southeast along I-45, another pad site is set aside for gasoline sales. There’s also an RC — perhaps a continuation of Raising Cane’s into-the-Loop foray:
Uses for a last retail pad site are currently left to the reader’s imagination:
Across Cullen, the looping freeway entrance ramp planned for the former site of Bestway Motor Inn is shown, next to the parking lot of the Catholic Charismatic Center:
- Cullen Blvd. Retail [Lovett Commercial; flier PDF]
- Previously on Swamplot: Housing, Retail, Ramp to 59 Planned for I-45 at Cullen Blvd.; Finger Furniture Selling Showroom, Old Baseball Stadium Property Near UH; A Whole New Ball Game: Fingers Back and Open for Business
Images: Lovett Commercial
I wouldn’t read too much into it….”SBUX” might simply stand for “Something But Ultimately X [nothing]”
First Starbucks in the East End? Technically, the first free-standing Starbucks, since there are 3-4 locations on the UH campus.
Hoping for a Super Target! Are there any Targets between Downtown and Friendswood/ Baybrook??? Target is full of stuff to furnish dorm rooms….
This b.s. WalMart story just will not die. Gossipers gonna gossip. It’s amazing how even middle-aged men engage in it.
Is UH campus in the East End? No? Then I guess it would be the first Starbucks in the East End.
Some people have crazy ideas as to what is considered the East End. The East Ends southernmost boundary is the Gulf Freeway. South of 45 is Third Ward which is where UH is located.
The sideways gas station makes me think Walmart/Murphy Oil, HEB, or Kroger.
@ Eddie: Don’t know if the greater populace would choose to call it such, but the Greater East End Management District does include properties west of the Gulf Freeway, north of Telephone, going down to Gulfgate. (Maybe that’s why it’s the “Greater” East End?)
Wait, I thought we were calling it Eado these days?
great development. I really want our anchor to be HEB! that would solve the 3rd Ward food dessert to the immediate south of the interstate, while adding to Eastwood’s options past Krogers & Walmart! the Harris Co. housing complex on site is also a great project that will really benifit our most disadvantaged, with great shops right out the door! their def needs to be a dedicated walking/biking path put in to Scott St. to get to the rail station! this project will be so great for the 3rd Ward, East End, Second Ward & even Downtown residents, considering it will be adding to the 5 Grocers off the red line. and EaDo residents too!
and to my understanding, the Greater East End is the Super Neighborhood/Management Dist. that encompasses EaDo, North of 45 3rd Ward, Second Ward, Eastwood, Magnolia Park, Lawndale, Manchester & Gulfgate/Office City. not saying that’s right but that’s how I see it.
I hope it’s going to be a Kroger Marketplace store because it might be a great place to do your one stop shopping-All at once.
Wow, it took the Heights a long time to get their Wal Mart, and now Eastwood is getting the treatment while it’s still “up and coming.”
Let’s get real folks. It really doesn’t make sense for it a Walmart, and for that exact same reason it (sadly) doesn’t make sense for it to be an HEB. Look at the density of those stores on the map, there is nowhere else in town where 2 walmarts would be that close to each other (literally less than 2 miles). Similarly the same is true for HEB. As much as I would want one there. Same story for Kroger, unless they plan on abandoning their previous location. And honestly I don’t feel like you see a lot of grocery stores set up on freeway facing real estate. Target seems like an obvious pick, but I don’t know, seems like I’ve heard they explicitly said no, which is strange.
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Then there’s the voice in the back of my head whispering “how many different brands of dollar stores could you fit there”?
There’s a Walmart exactly 1.98 miles south of this spot on the same side of the freeway. So of course, for a thoughtless person, it would make total sense for another Walmart to be at this location.
Sorry, but it definitely looks like a Walmart. First off, no one builds ~150k square foot stores here besides Walmart. None of the grocery stores come close…Kroger Marketplace tops out at 145k, and H-E-B hasn’t seen a real push to build stores over 100k square feet in the Houston area. The floorplan matches the current Walmart prototype: two main entrances, plus a third entrances that leads into the automotive and garden area (though not directly, the garden areas are completely enclosed now).
Who is gonna shop at a Walmart here that isn’t already comfortably served by the Wayside location? What great untapped area of town would Walmart be marketing to with another location here? Neither of these questions are rhetorical.
What if this store is REPLACING the store at Wayside? Has that occurred to anyone?
One of those QSR with the double drive thru line that mergers into one will be a Chick-fil-a. It matches the layout of all the other new chick-fil-a in town like the one on Taylor by the Target. Even has the little tables with round umbrellas. Big box will be a Walmart. I work for a big company in the area and that’s the word around the water cooler.
@Spirit The walmart on Wayside is fairly new. The Walmart on wayside is incredibly busy. There is no reason to move the walmart on wayside.
This is East End Houston. The barrio. We don’t have a grocery crisis. There are 6 big stores in the area. So we don’t need gentrifiers complaining. Y’all moved to the barrio, so y’all gonna live like us barrio folk. Start focusing on the real issues going on in these streets. Open y’all eyes to what’s really important over in the East End.