COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN THE NEW H-E-B MARKET OPENS ACROSS THE STREET “I shop at the Dunlavy Fiesta fairly regularly. To brace themselves for the new competition, the staff just got spiffy new uniform shirts, and they’ve put out a banner that says that location has housed a neighborhood grocery store for 60 years (indeed, my grandmother shopped there decades ago when it was a Safeway). I keep wanting to ask the employees if anyone is moving over to the HEB, because if I were running HEB the first thing I’d do is hire away the best Fiesta employees. But I’m sure it’s a touchy subject. I love HEB and will probably shop there, too, but I’m going to feel like a traitor.” [Carol, commenting on Meanwhile, on the Former Site of the Wilshire Village Apartments]
Sign up for the Newsletter
Tag: Grocery Stores
The Trader Joe’s market in The Woodlands looks like dirt. For now, at least. Yesterday, the company finally admitted that this tree-stripped site in the under-construction Woodlands Crossing Shopping Center at the corner of Kuykendahl Rd. and Woodlands Parkway will be the first Houston-area store to open (even though the other potential TJ’s location on the horizon — in-town, inside the former Alabama Theater — appears to be in the moving-dirt-around stages as well). Swamplot broke the news of The Woodlands store’s location last week — then asked readers to send in pics showing how far construction has progressed. And our Woodlands-area readers came through with these photos from yesterday and over the weekend, showing just how a baby shopping-center TJ’s is born:
Woodlanders wondering where Trader Joe’s is going to land, here’s your answer: Next to Petco in the Woodlands Crossing Shopping Center at 10868 Kuykendahl Rd., across from the H-E-B market at the intersection of Woodlands Pkwy. There’s nothing too dramatic about the plans for it, either: It’ll be a 13,500 sq. ft. space, with what looks like a typical shopping-center storefront:
STUDEMONT KROGER 380 AGREEMENT PASSES By a 10-5 vote this morning, city council approved the mayor’s plan for a so-called “380” development agreement between the city and Kroger. Under the agreement, the grocery company would receive up to $2.5 million in sales and property tax reimbursements from the city in return for job-creation guarantees connected to a new store and gas station at 1400 Studemont St., just south of I-10. Also in the deal: a land exchange with the city to allow Summer St. to connect to Studemont through the company’s property. [Previously on Swamplot]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE DESIGN SHOPPER “Call me crazy but I believe architectural style and design matters. This is why I’ll be doing my grocery shopping here and not at my boring Garden Oaks or Heights Kroger.” [MericaRulz, commenting on Meanwhile, on the Former Site of the Wilshire Village Apartments]
From photographer Candace Garcia: recent construction pix of the Montrose H-E-BMarket, designed by San Antonio’s Lake Flato Architects (with a little local help on the roof design), and going up at the corner of Dunlavy and West Alabama, across from Fiesta. Scheduled completion date: uh, sometime soon?
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:
STUDEMONT KROGER AIMS FOR A CITY TAX DEAL A couple of news bits about the new grocery store Kroger is planning for an 8.5-acre site it purchased in February at 1400 Studemont, just south of I-10 and just north of the Arne’s Warehouse and Party Store: It’ll measure 79,000 sq. ft., and will have a gas station. Plus, Chris Moran reports, Houston’s city council will consider sales and property tax reimbursements to the company of as much as $2.5 million. The proposed deal would require the company to create 170 jobs at the location for 13 years and donate $40,000 for improvements to Olivewood Cemetery across the street. [Houston Politics; previously on Swamplot]
Independent grocery store Klein’s Super Market closed down in April, after doing business in Tomball for 89 years — almost half of them at the corner of West Main St. and Buvinghausen. Next up for the 31,628-sq.-ft. vacant space at 1200 West Main: New life as a “community-based outpatient clinic” for the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center. The Veterans Administration has signed a 20-year lease for the property, Congressman Michael McCaul announced today. Renovations are expected to be completed next summer; the clinic should open to patients next fall. Also announced: a similar clinic at 750 Westgreen Blvd. in Katy, in an existing medical building.
- Locations for Katy, Tomball VA clinics announced [Katy Times]
- The end of an era: Klein’s Super Market to close doors at end of April [Tomball Potpourri
Photo: Jesse Smith
Twitter correspondent Emily Hurst sends this from-the-train-window view of the shuttered Byrd’s Market space at 420 Main St., at the corner of Prairie, as seen this morning. The owners of Georgia’s Farm to Market — the outsize buffet venue and natural-foods grocery store in that former Kmart space on the I-10 feeder near Dairy Ashford, formerly known as Sandy’s Market — are planning to open a second location here in November. Georgia’s Downtown will include a restaurant, a small grocery store (featuring many of the same products Georgia and Rick Bost pull from their farm and ranch in Waller, their own meat-processing plant in Bellville, and other local sources), and a beer and wine bar in the building’s basement, called “The Cellar.” They’ll also be renting out the basement for events. Behind the craft paper and signs on the windows, the interior is ready for its remodel — designed by Ziegler Cooper Architects.
- From farm to downtown [Prime Property]
- Georgia’s Farm to Market has downtown on its mind with Main Street location [Culturemap]
- Georgia’s Farm to Market and Georgia’s Downtown
Photo: Emily J. Hurst
Changes to the exterior of the Alabama Theater proposed by Weingarten Realty to accommodate grocery store Trader Joe’s debut appearance in Houston were approved today by the city’s Archeological and Historical Commission. Because it’s a designated city landmark, the commission’s approval is required for changes to the building’s facades (though an alternate wait-90-days-and-you-can-do-whatever-you-want option is also available). Trader Joe’s or Weingarten’s plans to restore, alter, or strip the innards of the Art Deco building at 2922 S. Shepherd Dr., though, won’t require any commission approvals — only construction or demo permits.
Yes, Trader Joe’s wants to open what would likely be its first-ever Houston store at the long-vacant Alabama Theater at 2922 S. Shepherd Dr. — the vacant retail space last used as the home of the Alabama Bookstop. Nancy Sarnoff digs up the proposal for exterior alterations to the designated city landmark sent to the archeological and historical commission by shopping-center owner Weingarten Realty; the changes have already been approved by city staff. Included in the plans: Two big store signs on top of the marquee facing Shepherd . . . and a brand-new turret at the back entrance.
The only thing remotely “disco” about the newly completed renovation of the Kroger at 3300 Montrose Blvd., aka Disco Kroger: The tiny lights inside the new letters on the newly stone-clad entrance. And they’re now covered in plastic. No disco ball in sight. But inside the 41,000-sq.-ft. store, it’s all hustle: Most of the checkout lanes are now express lanes, designed to get shoppers with less than 20 items out the door as quickly as possible. A new QueVision system monitors the number of customers and open lanes, helping cashiers predict how many will need to be open in the next half-hour:
Today was opening day for the third-ever Joe V’s Smart Shop, H-E-B’s growing chain of low-cost supermarkets. How low-cost are we talking? Well, put it this way: Checkers at the store won’t even touch your money. That’s right: You’ll be sliding it into a Wincor Nixdorf iCash register yourself — it sucks up your bills and coins and spits back change. And for a good number of the groceries you buy, you’ll be unpacking the items yourself too, directly from the boxes they were shipped in — just like you would at a big-box warehouse store. In the 51,000-sq.-ft. space carved out of a former Kmart at 12009 Northwest Fwy., on the west side of Hwy. 290 at 43rd St., the boxes and pallets are the displays:
Posted on HAIF: images from earlier this month of the empty but almost ready-to-open H-E-B at 3601 FM 1488 in The Woodlands. At 104,000 sq. ft., the North Woodlands Market will register as the biggest of the 4 H-E-Bs in the area. Inside, reports Chris, the cameraphone photographer, everything will be bigger than usual. Alas, no closeups of the guacamole bar. A similar layout and format is expected at the Sugar Land store scheduled to open in September.
