The Heights Life passes on drawings and details of the new Kroger grocery store and gas station planned for the former industrial property between Arne’s Warehouse and Party Store and I-10 at 1400 Studemont St. — from notes taken by a Super Neighborhood 22 representative who met with Kroger reps and council member Ed Gonzalez. Though at a planned 79,087 sq. ft. the store would be about 10,000 sq. ft. smaller than the recently renovated Heights store on 11th St. and Shepherd, it’ll look quite similar. The most interesting part of the site plan is the proposed connection of Hicks St., which turns off of Studemont south of the new store, to Summer St., which dead-ends into a parking lot currently filled with the heads of ex-Presidents, just south of the Sawyer Heights Target:
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The City’s intent is that this will become a through street, but there are some unspecified impediments. The portion of the block that is now Hicks will be improved to current City standards, and the whole block will be built like a City CIP project. Kroger will eventually dedicate that property to the City as street Right-of-Way in exchange for a smaller area of water/sewer ROW that the City will dedicate to Kroger. Access to the delivery docks will be from Hicks/Summer. An employee parking lot will occupy the portion of the lot south of Hicks/Summer next to Arne’s; Kroger expects that Arne’s will also use this lot at some point (possibly for its employees).
The new Kroger itself would face the parking lot and gas station to the north, with a pharmacy drive-thru paralleling Studemont on the west side. The report notes that no water detention or drainage improvements will be required — because the site was considered impervious before the warehouses were demolished a few years ago. Kroger officials expect to open the store in September or October of next year.
Up before city council this week: the proposed “380 agreement” for this store that would reimburse Kroger for up to $2.5 million in property and sales tax payments.
- Hope You Love Groceries! [The Heights Life]
- Studemont Kroger update [Off the Kuff]
- Previously on Swamplot: Studemont Kroger Aims for a City Tax Deal, Get Ready for a Studemont Kroger
Images: Kroger, via The Heights Life
On a related topic, the new Lake | Flato designed H-E-B on W. Alabama is looking very sharp indeed. I am very favorably impressed.
If the store can match the meat department of Whole Foods, I might have a new preferred store for groceries.
Glad it’s going in, but it sure is a generic design. I wish they would go more industrial and contemporary to match the new feel of the area it is in.
While I am open to this grocery store, I am closed to it receiving one penny of my tax dollars.
I believe you mean 1400 Studemont Street, not 1400 Studewood Street.
@KC: Yeah. Thanks for catching that.
Does this also include widening studemont to 3 lanes (each way)? traffic to I10 is already a nightmare in this area.. I can’t imagine a popular grocery store will help.
Whole foods meat department sucks, sans the chicken.. Worst beef, pork, and sausages I’ve ever had.. Anyone who thinks whole foods meat department is good is a fool.. Indeed though the new HEB does look sharp, and HEB’s produce is also several times better than WF.. WF is a waste of of money.
It would appear that they are going to plant trees in the middle of the feeder.
The HEB looks gigantic. Hopefully this will fit in with the scale of the surroundings better.
Can Kroger come up with a design that is new and fresh… the design they have is a real snooze. Good design does not cost anymore than bad design.
Agree with ‘um, seriously’…the new Alabama/Dunlavy HEB is enormous. I don’t understand why, either. If memory serves it is pushing 80,000 sq.ft., compared to the Montrose Whole Foods at ~45,000.
Boring design- I know it’s just a grocery store, but seems like they could have been more creative than this.
Being the beer snob that I am, I can only hope they have beer and wine on tap like they do at the new Whole Foods. Being able to grocery shop while having a nice pale ale is so unbelievably awesome.
I’m excited about this store because I have sworn off the 11th St one because a) my car got broken into right in front, b) parking is wretched, and c) entry from westbound 11th St is a colossal clusterF.
How is it that we need – count ’em – FOUR Krogers within a 3 mile radius of the Heights?? Four?? Really??
We’ve named all of the existing ones: There’s the Disco Kroger on Montrose, the Yuppie Kroger on W. Gray and the Hippie Kroger on 11th (where my wallet got lifted, but that’s another story…)
The irony is, I just don’t shop at any of them anymore. My groceries either come from the farmer’s markets or Whole Foods! Wow.
Hey, the W. Gray store is Cougar-K, not Yup-K. What do we propose for the Studemont Kroger? Houston desperately needs a place other than the Graustark St bridge for all the cranky Libertarians to congregate, so let’s call it the Paulista-K? Or maybe Audit-the-K? Instead of free-range meat, they can sell free-of-inspections meat…
I would think that the reason they would want to build a fourth Kroger is the same as the reason they are building four Whole Foods within a similar radius of each other. They are all busy all the time. Just because you don’t like Kroger doesn’t mean that the rest of us aren’t perfectly happy shopping there.
This is a brilliant move for Kroger. With this development they will be close to cornering the Heights market. However, I could not care less. My housekeeper is allowed to purchase groceries at only two places: Rice Epicurean and the Spec’s Deli. Kroger is for the masses.
This doesn’t seem so complex to me. The city wants to build the connector road on Hicks/Summer so Studemont will now connect to Sawyer Heights and make access to that area neighborhood a bit easier to hopefully open up development.
It’s not in the current CIP, so it would take a minimum of 5 years to get it done. They get their street project done now, and paid for by Kroger while reliving some traffic congestion.
Seems like a prudent move. The city doesn’t want the Kroger, they want the road
So many complaints over the past few years about the Heights area not having a good grocery store. Now they will have this Kroger and a Super Walmart with access to great products and I would assume competitive prices and now everyone complains nonstop. You cannot ever make people happy!
No doubt that the new Kroger (or other grocery store) is needed in this area. Several times recently I’ve had to drive around the lot several times at Cougar-K looking for an open parking spot. With the new higher-density & higher income housing being built in the WAVE area, it will be a greatl resource.
I would much rather see our tax dollars used in developing roadways that spur development and jobs, than used on other “welfare” type projects. Just look at all of the new retail (which means sales tax $$) surrounding the Target at Sawyer.
If Summer Street connects through to Taylor, traffic in the area will be much better. I think most of the congestion on Studemont is from the road construction. I don’t think a new grocery store will have that much of an impact.
Studemont has always been a congestion nightmare at evening rush hour from motorists trying to get onto I-10 heading west. The construction is just a minor aggravation to the existing situation. And a new whompin’ supermarket *will* add to the mess.
sounds like a really stupid plan. do we need more traffic? i’m good on groceries.
Did they have to tear down Party Boy to build the new store. We could call it Party Boy Kroger – haaaay!