WHERE THE WALMART GOLDEN ARCHES WILL RISE 
The first sign that there’ll be a McDonald’s in the “Washington Heights” shopping-center development at Yale St. and Koehler . . . has appeared outside the Mickey D’s 2 miles away on Washington near I-10, notes the Swamplot reader who snapped this photo there. Where’s the new location? If you’re looking too hard, you might miss it: 111 Yale St. is the address for the Walmart currently under construction; that means you should be able to find your burgers and fries inside the store when it opens. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
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Perhaps the heavily marketed “chef driven restaurants” refered literally to the chefs that drive past the Walmart?
Don’t most, if not all Supercenter have a mcdonalds in them??
It is so nice to see another local small business go into this center. It really does compliment the Heights vibe and sooooo outdoes 19th Street for flair. I vote we move White Linen Night down here. Parking so so much better, along with that small town yet urban feel.
While few skulk away in their sheltered view of what a neighborhood should be, the majority of residents will enjoy the new offerings that will bring a better quality of life for many.
You are right, kjb434. Before the Walmart came, life in the Heights sucked ass. If you wanted to go to Walmart, you had to drive FIVE EXTRA MINUTES on I-10 to get to a brand new Walmart at Silber Rd. If that was what life was going to be in the Heights, I was ready to set fire to my house for the insurance money. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. If I wanted to blow off all the great little Mexican restaurants around the neighborhood and get some franchised Tex-Mex fast food at Taco Cabana, I had to drive 1.78 miles to get to the one at Shep and 610. Now, I only have to drive 1.79 miles to get to the one by the Walmart. And if I wanted to blow off Antidote, Boomtown, Crickets and Waldos and get some corporate coffe, I had to drive a quarter of a mile less to get to the one on 610 (sure, the two along Shep are easier to get in and out of on the way to downtown and the two in my building are sort of “convenient”, but I need at least six Starbucks available to me everyday–five just wasn’t cutting it). I think I could actually see my property values go up when the Taco Cabana and Starbucks finally opened.
I was sick and tired of all of this “walkable neighborhood/local business” bull that has just about ruined the Heights. Thank goodness the Heights is finally being developed in the same manner as the soulless, mindnumbing Houston suburbs of corporate conformity. Hopefully, the new Yale St. Market development will have an outparcel for a Fridays. It is torture to have to go up 290 to get that awesome Jack Daniels sauce. I do not know how people in the Heights have been able to manage all these years.
Old School, Walmart wouldn’t have put that there if they didn’t think they could make money there.
But continue your wall-of-text apoplexy.
So, there are still McDonald’s restaurants? What a revelation. I haven’t been to one since 1986 when I had ate a McRib and was constipated for over a week. If you think adding a Mickey D’s is a plus for any given neighborhood, you must be a person who’s easily pleased. More power to ya.
@spoonman: If you think a bunch of executives in Bentonville, AR know what residents of Houston Heights want better than the actual residents, then continue with your fantasy world.
And I wasn’t saying that no one will shop their. It is next to one of the busiest highways in the world. People will shop their. I was dismissing the idea that the development is going to improve the quality of life for people in the Heights.
I know on a map that little sliver south of I-10 is considered part of the Heights…and people are so cute to call it the Heights WalMart….but really….the difference between the Heights on the north side and on the south side of I-10 are night and day. there has been nothing quaint and neighborhoody on the south side of I-10 portion of the Heights in ages, if ever. They are keeping the tat (allbeit new and polished! I have no issue with it!) on the south side…alright already! the eclectic Heights neighborhood that you all go on and on about…is on the NORTH side of I-10…and the WalMart center and Orr’s center and Kroger at Studewood and Target center and Washington Avenue’s busy night life is all seperated from the quaint part of the Heights by an INTERSTATE HIGHWAY! RELAX already!!!!!!!
Old School,
So you assume the poorer among us can just jump in a car or use the non-existent bus line to get to the Silber Wal-Mart?
Really, the demographics of the Heights is still primarily Wal-Mart’s target customer. Just looking at how crowded Target is (all the time) on Taylor, there is plenty of room for a Wal-Mart.
Also, Houston is getting denser and denser and that short distance to the Silber Wal-Mart is not as close as you think. By that same logic, Target should have been protested just as much because there is one just FIVE MINUTES away at San Felipe and the West Loop.
And Spoonman is right, Wal-Mart wouldn’t have built one here if they didn’t think it was successful. Wal-Mart’s track record of stores being successful is stellar.
The Walmart in Sealy TX has a Subway in it instead of McDonald’s.
But the Walmart folks probably heard about how the ‘heights’ people look down on Subway ’cause, you know, there’s one on every corner.
Well said LudaKris. These Heights zealots drive me nuts.
Old School likes to think the Heights is something it is not. Most Heights residents…including me…will at least occasionally shop there.
And, now, with a Mickey D’s…I can almost see Old School’s head explode from here! Does it get any better than this?
I’m with Old School on this one. Wal-Mart and McDonalds, in all of their many thousands of stores, have never improved a neighborhood, provided fair living wages to their workers, or accomplished anything in general besides providing dirt-cheap fare for the lower end of the income bracket and huge cashflow for their stakeholders at any expense. They both have had disastrous effects on our society, and bleeting on about their sole merit of a successful business model is ridiculous. I won’t patronize the “Yale St. Market”, though I’m sure many will. Hopefully the local effects are slim.
Walmart and McDonald’s under the same roof!?! I mean, I thought Which Wich and Starbucks was incredible but this just makes the area scream CLASSY! Thank you McDonald’s Corp., for taking the risk on opening a business near the Heights as we were severely lacking in good food. Make that GREAT food, in your case. It’s good business owners, with solid, well-thought-out business plans, like you that make this country, America.
The good news is that the McDonald’s will be inside so no traffic cluster at the drivethrough like the one on Washington and I-10.
I don’t like either business, but I’m resigned to the fact that there’s nothing I can do about them except never shop at either. And I don’t.
I think Heights residents – myself included need to realize that the new, continuous feeder road on I-10 is going to change the neighborhood, more suburban-style stores and chain restaurants and hence more through traffic.
What a bunch of hypocritical drama queens. There was none of this crying and whining when Target opened on Taylor along with the other retail chains right by it. There were no yard signs decrying the evils of corporatism resulting in low quality Chinese take-out, baby back ribs, or volume discount pet supplies.
The fight is over. Walmart got its location. My advice is to hope for its success, because if it fails, we’ll be left with a huge derelict retail building, which could in turn bring down all of the smaller “pilot fish” retailers attached to it.
Yeah, that will do WONDERS for the neighborhood.
Ian,
Would you prefer a person sit at home or work for $10 an hour until they get something better?
crosscreek, hahahaha! Try again. $7-8/hour. $10 is more a shift manager wage. Anyway, of course I would rather someone work those wages than stay home. I mean, anything is better than nothing, right? How else are we gonna buy $1 hamburgers and mcmuffins?
Nothing like the clueless hypocrisy of the left. Walmart is a welcome addition to the West End neighborhood. The fact that most larger Walmarts have a McDonalds in them is non-news. It’s fast food that targets the typical Walmart shopper that doesn’t have time to stop for anything other than fast food. And, you can get healthy food at any McDonalds now. These leftist social engineering dweebs kill me. This Walmart will no more ruin the Heights on the other side of I-10 than the man on the moon. What it will do is bring some competition to the Sawyer Target, and finally make another low priced retailer available to downtown dwellers, not to mention West End, Rice Military, River Oaks, Montrose residents, the list goes on and on. Oh, and this “liveable wage” crap is absurd as well. Minimum wage jobs are not for the head of a family, but for transitional employees, such as students, etc. Life will never be fair. You have to work to get ahead. It’s not the job of the government to make life fair for everyone.
Give me a break. Walmart’s intent and purpose in outbidding HEB and then building at this location was to pick off Heights yuppies otherwise shopping at Target and the suburbanites headed back to Katy. That it’s developers got tax incentives to run off the nearby low income housing, destroy the surrounding sidewalks and tear out the shade trees is all you need to know.
I really don’t care for any of the businesses coming in or their business models, but I’m really happy about the hundreds of jobs that will be created once they’re here. If these are the only companies with the capital to expand these days, well, that’s unfortunate, but at least someone‘s growing. That’s where most of the people—the ones that can’t afford the Rice Military townhouses, anyway—on this side of I-10—you know, the non-Heights side—work to feed their families and pay bills, etc., or where all the kids being raised over here will get their first job. Not everyone can work at Wabash or the comic book store.
I live in The Heights, rarely eat fast food and have not been in a Walmart in a long time, but I have noticed that:
McDonalds has helped more people move up in social status than any taxpayer funded gov’t welfare type program. Furthermore, McDonald’s, through management training and franchise opportunities, has created more millionaires than the welfare, affirmative racism, pick-your-govn’t handout programs; especially among minorities. Why does everyone rag on McDonald’s, it provides an opportunity to move up to into management and build business skills if someone works hard.
Walmart does the same if the person applies themselves. If they do the bare minimum they keep stocking shelves.
This development, while not my choice in shopping, has cleaned up an area that previoulsy consisted of beat up/illegal alien infested apartments, vacant and contaminated lots and the like, so at least it is a step up.
I see snotty comments from leftist Heights residents (I am a rightist resident) and snottier comments from Heights haters. What is being developed is better than what was there before. As far as the tax breaks, that is Houston politics and has been for a long time, tax breaks for Walmart and Krogers as well as the retarded Dynamo stadium.
@The Juke. $7-8 for shift manager, huh? Your elitism is showing. Minimum wage is $7.25, so there are no $7 shift managers. Further, shift manager pay at a typical McDonald’s runs from $10 to $14 per hour. Now, I know that as an elite liberal snob, you’d not be caught dead living next door to someone whose annual salary ranges from $21,000 to $29,000. However, given that unemployment maxes out at $13,208, surely you would not begrudge the poors a higher paying job than government subsistence.
BTW, did you know that Starbucks pays their shift managers the same wages as McDonald’s? I wonder what Antidote pays their shift managers?
Went to Target, every hardgood, softgood item is made in China Cute commercials tho. Maybe that is why heights yuppities feel classy there. So a pizza hut and Starbucks makes target classier than wal mart ? Initally I was not thrilled abt the devlopment, but then saw the reaction of the holier than thous..
There’s really nothing more entertaining than the hipocracy of the left. It gets me every time!
Dave, My elitism? Really? I work for a church/parish and I’d be willing to bet that I make much less than you (not that I’m proud of that). Read my post again. I said $10 is a shift manager wage, for which you apparently want to correct me by saying that a shift manager gets paid $10/hour (or up to $14/hour which I’ve never heard of but anyway). And wow, I was really off about the entry-level wage, by a whole quarter! So, everyone, for the record, entry-level wage at McDonald’s is $7.25-$8/hour and NOT $7-8/hour, which is what I said. Thanks for that, Dave. Furthermore, did I ever claim that Starbucks pays more than McDonald’s? Or is that what you pre-conceived notion of what I think is? I do know that Starbucks has superior benefits however. I don’t even know what Antidote is. Please enlighten an elitist liberal, like myself.
I’ve seen Subway in some Walmart’s that have a McDonald’s in the parking lot. McDonald’s has over saturated the market for years
Dance Puppets DANCE!!!!
CK should get quote of the year for the following:
“You have to work to get ahead. It’s not the job of the government to make life fair for everyone.”