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K-Mart At 1431 W. 20th St.


jookyhc

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Has anyone heard anything about the former K-Mart West of the Heights at the jumble intersection around E. TC Jester, 18th, and 19th near Ella?

It has looked pretty much the same since I moved back to H-town two years ago, but some fencing has just gone up in the last couple of weeks.

Also I was wondering how the traffic ever worked around there. Most of those roads are in pretty bad shape, and the fork intersection is a recipe for disaster now. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to have tempted fate with Christmas traffic when that store was open.

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I want say they go by Shady Acres.

I live just south of this area by TC Jest and I-10.

From my recent attendence at the White Oak Bayou Association (WOBA) meeting, I heard there was a push to rip out the store and parking lot because it has become useless. It's located within the White Oak Bayou floodway, which is worse than being in the floodplain. Being in the floodway, and new construction would not be allowed by a lender and no flood insurance could be given to the facility. Also, new construction would be stopped by the city because of its location.

The rumor running around the area is that the KMart will be ripped and turned into a large detention basin. The basin would be large enough to place a park at the bottom with playgrounds, and or Tennis and Basketball courts. The biggest obstacle would be getting money to build the detention part in the first place.

The owner of the property is having a tough time selling or leasing the facility because of its floodway status.

I'm ready for a government entity to condemn the property and do with it what they please. I don't think the TIRZ for the area can do that though unless they have that power like a MUD.

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I believe KJB is right. I'm looking on a map and it labels that area as Shady Acres.

Lazy Brook is to the west of TC Jester but north of W. 18th; Holy park is west of Ella and south of W. 18th; Timbergrove is south of W. 18th, east of Ella (more or less) and west of TC Jester; and Shady Acres is east of Ella/TC Jester, north of W. 18th/W. 20th and west of Durham.

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  • 2 months later...

As I mentioned before,

http://www.bizjournals.com/industries/reta...y6.html?f=et181

Restaurant Depot picks empty Kmart for entry into Houston

Allison Wollam and Margaret Allen

Houston Business Journal

A national restaurant supply wholesaler has leased part of a shuttered Kmart building in the Heights to serve as its springboard into the Houston market.

The Restaurant Depot is taking 75,000 square feet of space at 1431 W. 20th St. to serve as a cash-and-carry operation selling supplies and food to local restaurants. The store is scheduled to open in September.

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While I believe this location could be used for better community use, such as demolition and digging a deep pit for flood storage, it's good to see the place won't just be empty.

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Yeah,

people need to stop believing in legislation to stop other people from hurting themselves. I don't want to be protected like that. So is that the reason there aren't many restraunts in the heights? The community stops it because of the potential of serving alcohol. That sucks, just because it serves alcohol doesn't mean the whole neighbor will go down.

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What a sad development, almost as sad as watching the almost-brand-new Albertson's turn into a storage building months after it closed. I had been hoping for better, but knew the writing was on the wall after the Sawyer Village announcement and the talk of a re-developed Northwest Mall. That little area is cursed. There's a lot of money in the subdivisions surrounding that corner, and yet there's nothing but crappy retail and a pitiful HEB Pantry and Foodarama.

Redscare, I think the fine folks over at Shade would have something to say about your comment. Have you eaten there yet? Or maybe La Tour D'Argent or Chatters. I finally tried Chatters, crappy name but pleasantly good food.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sweet. I live at Columbia and 10th, so I can walk to this place. I wonder, though, being so close to the Middle School, if he'll have a liquor license.

Haven't been to Shade yet, but I have some friends who know the owners, so I've told them I'll get by there soon. I've heard that it's a bit pricey, but very good food. Interesting, I heard they got a license by opening as a private club...like they do in North Dallas or West Texas.

Berryhill is pretty decent, as well. I walk to that one, too. In fact, I'll probably be having a cocktail there this evening. :P

Haven't been to La Tour or Chatters.

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If you're on a budget, the perfect time to try Shade is Sunday Brunch. I go there often. During brunch, I think the most expensive item is $15, but a majority of the entrees are in the $8-$10 range. The "private club" thing is a Texas dry county tradition. All they do is scan your drivers license into a database and voila you're a member.

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  • 9 years later...

OK, here's one intersection that I've personally witnessed and just have no idea what's up with it. It's a black hole for retail, with victims on all three sides (the fourth is to close to a bayou).

 

There's the Kmart (surviving since the 1970s but closed in 2002-2003, though whether it made a real profit is up for debate) now Restaurant Depot (not open for general public IIRC), an Albertsons (also closed around 2002 and now self-storage), and an Eckerd (based on the fact that it was never repainted to CVS red, I have to assume it's been sitting vacant for over a decade now). There seems to be pretty constant traffic for all those retails to have set up there in the first place, but the other thing is it seems kind of dangerous. It's a four way stop for two four-way roads, then the right hand lane disappears if you want not go to 18th, and then immediately splits again between 20th and 19th.

 

You'd think that back in 2001 when it had retail that would justify putting a stoplight there, but did they say "Well, there's already two stoplights just west of here" and then just not put one up? Have Heights residents been putting up with this for years? Who knows?

 

The least they could do is cut off West 18th and then make the right lane go into 19th, which would probably be cheaper than installing a stoplight...

 

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This is right down the road from my office and it has to be MY FAVORITE INTERSECTION IN HOUSTON EVER. 

 

But seriously though, the pothole nightmare stories we hear have nothing on this beauty. It's one giant clusterfvvk of pisspoor engineering and management. I pray to the car gods for my suspension every time I drive through it.

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Apparently this configuration isn't even all that old, 1995 before they continued TC Jester south is totally different, with an awkward four-way intersection between continuing east on West 18th, northwest to TC Jester, or northeast to 19th & 20th.

 

As for the potholes, that's arguably a result of the "no zoning" principles, almost immediately after I managed to get ONTO West 19th, traffic immediately ground to a halt as an 18-wheeler tried to squeeze itself into the parking lot of the Southern Floral Company. Fun times!  <_<

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That intersection just isn't that bad. E T C Jester was built by the TIRZ as a sop to Albertsons and the property owners who wanted to build apartments. It was really hard on The Timbergrove Sports Association that had to make do with temporary fields for several years.

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That intersection just isn't that bad. E T C Jester was built by the TIRZ as a sop to Albertsons and the property owners who wanted to build apartments. It was really hard on The Timbergrove Sports Association that had to make do with temporary fields for several years.

Obviously the Eckerd went bust in just a few years, and the Albertsons never became a grocer again. It was twice the size of the HEB, which could've put the Pantry to a merciful death and given it full line departments...

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The Eckerd was never a CVS. Eckerd was located in the southern part where Foodarama is located at 18th and Ella and the grocery store was only in the northern part.  They built a new style stand alone pharmacy on E TC Jester around 2000 and it immediately flooded during Allison I think.  When CVS bought Eckerd in this region they closed that store rather than rebrand it I think. 

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And, before there was a Walgreens on the top of the mound next to the bank, there was a Blockbuster. I don't think the Blockbuster was elevated that high The HEB was a Food City that was even worse than the HEB, which is pretty grim.

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The Eckerd was never a CVS. Eckerd was located in the southern part where Foodarama is located at 18th and Ella and the grocery store was only in the northern part. They built a new style stand alone pharmacy on E TC Jester around 2000 and it immediately flooded during Allison I think. When CVS bought Eckerd in this region they closed that store rather than rebrand it I think.

That would make sense, I remember when CVS rebranded Eckerd in 2004 or 2005, they repainted any blue trim red.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A little history on that intersection of West 18th and East T.C. Jester for you, IronTiger. East T.C. Jester did not go across West 18th until the Albertsons (now self storage) was built. It stopped at Discount Tire and forced you to turn left of right.

The other end of East T.C. Jester was a stub, approximately three blocks north of West 11th. As was stated above, the construction of Albertsons and the apartments were what gave purpose to connecting the two stubs. Prior to that, what now is East T.C. Jester was part of the Timbergrove little league baseball fields. Bevis (is it Beall? I've always confused the two), is one street to the east, and was also extended from West 16th to connect with East T.C. Jester as a result of the new construction. Before, it dead ended into 16th and forced you to turn left. What now is the extended road, was the gravel drive to get into the fields, complete with a small yellow iron gate.

As for the area being a retail wasteland, it's always been that way. Kmart was it on that intersection for years. Then Discount was built in its parking lot. Eckerd's was built as a standalone when they moved out from the 18th st. end of Foodarama, allowing the grocer to expand the store into the former Eckerd's space. The standalone Eckerd's was closed when West 20th and Yale's CVS opened. Eckerd's 3 stores became 1 CVS. The 3 Eckerd's that closed were at the corner of East 20th at North Main, West 18th at East T.C. Jester, and West 11th at Yale. West 11th predated both of the others, as those two Eckerd's were built in the early 90s.

The original size of Foodarama is glaringly apparent from the inside. Very noticeable where the old Safeway ended and Eckerd's began. What now is Golden Chinese Restaurant (where 20th splits with 19th) was a kick ass seafood place named Catfish Kitchen back when I was young. Over the years (early 80s- early 90s)the place began to really suffer and it became the dirty hellhole it is now as Golden Cafe. Albertsons was a big empty area of overgrowth, as was where the bank now stands across the bayou. Walgreen's was originally Blockbuster, as Walgreen's was in the strip across 18th (last occupant in that space was a hardware store, now vacant). Same strip now has HEB, which was rebuilt out of the rubble of the old Davis Food City that used to stand there. Cloth World was directly next door to Food City. Little Caesars Pizza rounded out the end of that strip, and became a bit of irony when Kmart started serving Little Ceasars Pizza Pizza out of its cafeteria.

Why a traffic light was never installed at that intersection, I've no clue. I always assumed that it was due to the close proximity of the other two lights at Ella and West T.C. Jester, and not wanting to snarl traffic further.

Restaurant Depot is indeed open for your shopping needs and desires. I've been there on a couple of occasions, but don't get your hopes up. The interior bears little resemblance to its former self.

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Hmm.....now that I think about it, the Foodarama (I was in the area trying to collect stuff for my blog) did seem a little big for the general Safeway size. Knowing that one could tell where the Safeway ended and the Eckerd began makes me a little upset that I didn't check it out when I was in the area (and that's why I was in the ETCJ/19th area anyway) a few months ago.

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I've got to correct you, Tiger. West 19th does not intersect East T.C. Jester. West 19th stops in front of the old Catfish Kitchen (Golden Cafe) as it always has. West 18th used to connect differently than it currently does, but West 19th ends where it always has.

Kmart, however, has/had a West 20th address and penning this is causing "...and as always, thanks for shopping your West 20th Street Kmart" to echo in my head. Too many visits to that particular Kmart in my lifetime, I assure you.

If you would be interested, I'd be happy to meet up with you on one of your next trips to Houston, to help you connect some of the dots. You have a keen interest in history, and I've lived through several decades of it in this town.

I tend to unnerve some of my friends and acquaintances, because I'll give someone directions and it'll go something like:

"Hey Joe, how do I get to point A?"

"Well, you go down to such and such and where this and that used to be, you turn left, right, or whatever."

"Where such and such was? Well, what's there now?"

"I don't know, but it used to be this, this, this and that".

"Good Lord, Joe, why do you even remember all of that?"

"I don't know, but I still do."

Should've looked it up on mapquest, I guess.

I can vividly tell you about events that happened 30 years ago, and most of the time, can't instantly recall what I had for dinner last night. Weird quirk, I suppose.

I should add, East T.C. Jester was only 2 lanes next to the Kmart, complete with little stubs breaking up the median. Where Tumbleweed's was, right before Ella, is where the two lanes became four for the Ella intersection. It was only half of what it is now through that stretch between Ella and West 18th for many years.

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From the absolute beginning. You see, when they built the section between West 18th and Ella, they built one half of the boulevard and opened it for traffic. That's how it sat, half completed, some 20-25 years. When they built the connection from the south side to West 18th, THEN the other half of that section of T.C. Jester was finished.

Next time you guys are in the area, note the concrete difference on each side of the median. Most just drive down it and never have the first clue of its history. I can drive down East T.C. Jester and point out where the temporary asphalt overlay cut across the median to merge over to the half road.

That intersection was much different until T.C. Jester was connected. An absolute afterthought on the way to Northwest Mall or The Castle. Only real traffic that it ever saw back then was coming out of Kmart, Discount, or Tumbleweed's. Everyone knew it didn't connect, so we used Ella or Durham to get to 11th.

Ah...the olden days. How'd we ever survive?

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