Houston, Texas real estate development, home buying, landscape, and design

Yesterday featured separate announcements of retail closings from Starbucks and JPMorgan Chase: First, 36 out of 111 Houston-area Washington Mutual branches will be shut down by March; the remainder will be converted to Chase Bank locations. That’ll leave only 220 Chase Bank locations around town. Next, Starbucks says the company will close 300 coffee shops worldwide, including 200 in the U.S. No word on how many will be leaving the Houston area, but last year 11 stores in this region closed after a 600-store cut. For the surviving locations, there may be a longer wait for decaf after lunch: “Company officials say demand for decaf falls off significantly in the afternoon, and Starbucks will brew decaf in the afternoon only at a customer’s request. It takes about four minutes to make a fresh pot. Last year, Starbucks started brewing fresh pots of coffee every 30 minutes.” [Houston Business Journal; previously]