THE RUMORS IN-N-OUT OF SUGAR LAND 
“Sources in the 77478 tell me ‘In an Out Burger’ coming to Sugar Land,” tweets morning talk-show host Matt Jackson. “Suspected location near Skeeters Stadium.” And how about a big ol’ bag of frozen sweet-potato fries to go with that?: “In related but less important news to most of you…Sugar Land also getting a Costco.” [Twitter; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Constellation Field: Aero Photo
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Tag: Retail
GAMESTOP’S APPLE-POLISHING STRATEGY 
Strip-center mainstay GameStop has a new strategy to keep itself from going the way of video-game cartridges: changing its business in the direction of another strip-center mainstay: the mobile phone store. The company began a program of buying used iPhones last fall; it’s now ready to remake itself as a leading reseller of used Apple gadgets. Company employees are working on coming up to speed on repairing Android devices as well. Seventy-one of the Texas chain’s 6,600 locations are in the greater Houston area. Sixty stores around the country have already begun selling prepaid wireless plans; an analyst suggests selling phone plans to go with used phones could become a big new business for the chain. [SF Chronicle] Photo of GameStop Outlet at Westheimer and Hwy. 6: Dr. Mario Kart
“The thing went up in about two weeks,” writes the camera-toting bicyclist from the First Ward who sends us these photos of the new Kroger under construction at 1400 Studemont, just south of I-10. “I was hoping they would link it through to Target,” continues the tipster. “As all this industrial stuff redevelops in that area they are going to have to break up some of the super blocks or the traffic is going to be a mess.” As part of a “380†tax-reimbursement agreement approved by the city last year, Kroger promised to build a block of Summer St. behind the store (part of which is labeled Hicks St. on the plan shown here) to connect it through to Studemont. There’s also a tighter route:
From a tall perch nearby, a reader sends Swamplot this shot of the future site of BLVD Place, where — it appears — site work has begun on the land slated to become the second phase of the mixed-use development, including the long-awaited Galleria Whole Foods Market and more than 150,000 sq. ft. of shops. The camera is pointed down San Felipe, looking east toward Post Oak. Here’s another view of the site from the south, from another reader:
GALLERIA RICHARD’S BECOMES SPEC’S, AND OTHER RICHMOND AVE. SWITCHES 
“The Richard’s Liquors off Richmond Avenue and Chimney Rock turned into a Spec’s almost overnight,” begins a reader report on recent happenings in the area. More turnovers in the commercial landscape, from our tipster: “It seems like Richmond Avenue is going through redevelopment since the Taco Cabana and Jack in the Box closed, and they too were by the Chimney Rock intersection. Also the new apartments going up called Avenue R off Barrington have started to build the wooden frames and a large parking garage. The Jack in the Box actually turned into a ‘TitleMax’ title loans shop and it’s painted blue. The old Taco Cabana building is just sitting there and empty but a gas station would be nice there.” The Galleria-area Richard’s rebranding took place last week; other locations of the Spec’s-owned local liquor chain appear to be holding onto the Richard’s name — for now. [Swamplot inbox] Photo: Spec’s
THE WASHINGTON HEIGHTS WALMART RETAIL BUDDY LIST 
The list of stores is out. Who’ll be moving in to Ainbinder’s Washington Heights shopping strips at Yale and Koehler, across from the new Walmart in Houston’s West End? Yes, they’re all chains. And there’s a bank, a phone store, a Starbucks, and a nail salon in there, for street- er, parking-lot cred. The lineup: JP Morgan Chase, Taco Cabana, Visionworks, Sport Clips, Jersey Mike’s, Nailtime, GNC, GameStop, Corner Bakery (pictured), Starbucks, Verizon, Which Wich, and Chipotle. [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: The Ainbinder Company
Scratch that whole Whole Foods Market reannouncing its BLVD Place plans bit. The new Houston store the grocery company announced yesterday will be a 40,000-sq.-ft. spot in a new strip center planned for the Champions area — on a now-forested plot of land at the southeast corner of Louetta Rd. and Cutten Rd., a few blocks east of the Vintage Park shopping center. And it won’t open until 2014.
Photo: LoopNet
WAITING FOR A GALLERIA WHOLE FOODS 
Has Whole Foods Market finally signed a lease for the store on Post Oak Blvd. near San Felipe that the developers of BLVD Place have been promising since 2007? Yesterday Whole Foods announced it had signed leases for new grocery stores averaging 37,500 sq. ft. in 12 cities, including Houston. Whether that means a new location near the Galleria or somewhere else in the city, it could still be a while before it opens: “These stores,” says the press release, “currently are scheduled to open in fiscal year 2014 and beyond.” [MarketWatch; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Wulfe & Co. Update, 2:50 pm: The new store will be in Champions.
The arches are gone, and new steel is up: Reader Ken Barnes sends in this shot of the rather extensive “renovations” taking place on the former Village Kids and Janie & Jack building across the street from Central Market at 3838 Westheimer, down the street from the Highland Village Shopping Center. It’ll be the Houston area’s third Pinkberry, the first inside the Loop.
- Previously on Swamplot: Houston Pinkberry No. 3: Across from Central Market
Photo: Ken Barnes
The Alamo reinforcements have arrived! Okay, they’re just temporary steel props, but they’re now holding the tilt-up concrete facade out of the mud around the tamale-themed strip center Warwick Construction is putting up on Houston’s Northside. The 23,000-sq.-ft. Alamo Tamale Company development at 809 Berry Rd. just west of Irvington will include a bakery, a reception hall, a restaurant and cantina, a dessert bar, and — yes — an on-site tamale-construction facility. Plus: a drive-thru meant to accommodate about 20 tamale-pickup vehicles.
The robbers who held up a couple of IBC Bank locations inside Houston-area Kroger stores in 2 separate incidents over the last few months won’t have those branches to kick around any more. The IBC Bank in the Kroger at 11565 Hwy. 6 South in Sugar Land (at the corner of West Airport) and the one in the store at 3135 FM 528 and Bay Area Blvd. in Friendswood (featured in the surveillance video still above) have now been shut down — along with 2 other in-Kroger locations. The closings weren’t a direct result of the robberies, but part of International Bancshares Corp.’s plan to close up grocery-store locations — which have grown unprofitable as a result of new restrictions on bank fees — and open a few more standalone branches. IBC closed 20 Houston-area grocery-store branches — 19 in H-E-B Markets and another inside a Randall’s — last December.
- IBC Bank closes half its Houston branches, plans strategic growth [Houston Business Journal]
- Friendswood Police searching for lone suspect in Kroger store bank branch robbery [Bay Area Citizen]
- $5K reward out for grocery store bank robber [MyFox Houston]
Photo of suspect in Friendswood Kroger IBC Bank: Bay Area Citizen
FAIR WARNING: ABOUT TO MESS WITH ALABAMA THEATER MARQUEE 
Publicists for Weingarten Realty want Swamplot readers to know that workers about to poke into the underside of the Alabama Theater marquee aren’t dismantling it. They’ll only be replacing the lights there with new LED fixtures. Doing that will require removing the soffit panels below the Shepherd-facing sign on the soon-to-be first Houston-proper Trader Joe’s. “The marquee will look just as it does today with the only exception being new energy efficient lighting on the underside,” the shopping-center owner tells Swamplot. The work should take about 2 weeks. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Weingarten Realty
Does the conversion of 2 former Borders Books locations (or at least part of them) into some sort of medical facility constitute a trend? Texas Children’s Pediatric Associates is building a clinic in the former Borders mezzanine space in the not-in-River-Oaks Centre at River Oaks at the corner of West Alabama and Kirby. And Kelsey-Seybold announced yesterday it’ll be turning the former Borders store in Meyerland Plaza — along with the long-vacant Planet Music space above it — into a new medical clinic and pharmacy. Of the 72,000 sq. ft. in the new “Multi-Specialty Care Center,” 27,000 will be used as warehouse space, according to a company press release.
Last night at the Fiesta on Dunlavy was the last night at the Fiesta on Dunlavy. Photographer-about-town Sarah Lipscomb, who began shopping at the store on the corner of West Alabama back when it was a Safeway, grabbed a few shots of the grocery store’s interior as she strolled the aisles there one last time:
It turns out the construction work Swamplot readers noted last week on the vacant lot at 1401 Binz St., catty-corner from the Children’s Museum, is for a 4-story structure combining ground-floor shops, 2 floors of medical office space, and a top-floor residence — all in less than 30,000 sq. ft. A small courtyard will separate the building from a linked multilevel 160-car parking garage. Half the office space, reports the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff, will be taken up by medical clinics operated by UT dermatologist Stephen Tyring; he also owns the property and is an owner of the development firm, Dermedica Property Group. Bailey Architects notes on its website that the building “will reflect the architectural fabric of Houston’s premier museum district buildings.” Sarnoff’s translation: It’ll look Modern. Contractor Arch-Con expects construction to be complete early next year.
- Sarnoff: Ministry makes Midtown move [Houston Chronicle]
- Museum Point Medical Office Building [Bailey Architects]
- Previously on Swamplot: Clearing an Empty Lot in the Museum District
Rendering: Bailey Architects
