Shepherd Square Shopping Center At 2075 Westheimer Rd.

[hindesky]

By Olivia Pulsinelli  – Assistant managing editor, Houston Business Journal

After Randalls announced the closure of its prominent Montrose storefront more than a year ago, a new tenant has been lined up.

Minneapolis-based Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) confirmed to the Houston Chronicle that it leased approximately 63,000 square feet at 2075 Westheimer, the site of the former grocery store. More details, including the opening date, were not available. 

The Montrose Randalls, located in the Shepherd Square Shopping Center at the corner of Westheimer and Shepherd Drive, was one of three that the grocery store chain announced it would close in late 2018. 

Houston-based Wulfe & Co. built the Shepherd Square Shopping Center, one of its first inner-Loop projects, in 1989. Randalls signed a lease in the property, a 128,000-square-foot shopping center at 2075 Westheimer Road, and opened its fourth flagship store there. 

But the company's late founder, Ed Wulfe, told the Houston Business Journal in 2018 that the Randalls closure didn't come as a surprise. 

"They have been struggling as a supermarket for some time now and not producing sufficient sales," Wulfe said at the time. "This used to be one of their best stores in the city." 

Wulfe noted that the storefront would be a desirable piece of real estate for any number of uses — a liquor and wine store, a high-end furniture store, a fitness operation — and could be divided up to occupy several retailers.

"You can’t find a 61,000-square-foot big box space that’s in the heart of the city," Wulfe said.

In January, Randalls announced five other Houston-area closures, adding to the several closed in recent years. Some other former Randalls stores also have been given new life, including a Cypress store becoming a location of Star Furniture & Mattresses.

[Texasota]

Deeply mixed feelings about this. 

Great location, but that means this site won't become anything better than a 2-story strip mall anytime soon.

[dbigtex56]

28 minutes ago, Texasota said:

Deeply mixed feelings about this. 

Great location, but that means this site won't become anything better than a 2-story strip mall anytime soon.

My first reaction upon reading this was "Didn't they just build this place?"
Then I read the article. Holy crap! 1989?! 
At any rate, to me a Target in the neighborhood is a good thing. There's been an unfilled market for b&m's since South Main Sears and the Radio Shack in Montrose closed.
Stop laughing. I'm serious.

[j_cuevas713]

This is awesome news!

[Texasota]

No I completely agree with all of that. This is just a *huge* lot - I would've like it better if this was integrated into the announcement of redeveloping it as much higher density mixed use development.

 

Proposed compromise: it goes in here temporarily, but the redevelopment of the Tower shopping center at Montrose includes either a target or urban sized CityTarget.

 

That one opens, this one closes, and then this site gets redeveloped with a new Target integrated. And a Muji. And a Flying Tiger. 

 

Done. Make that happen, development gods!

[urbanize713]

Does this mean the Midtown mixed use one is not happening? or is this in anticipation of it coming along the lines of what @Texasota mentioned? Sites are separated by about 1.9 miles.  

[cspwal]

That is about 30 minutes of travel at rush hour, so one in midtown might still work, especially if this one is a full Target and the midtown one is a smaller city target

[Luminare]

Tinkering in my mythical urban planning simulator courtesy of Google Maps. I would do something like this (remember this is like 5mins of initial site planning, so take it with a grain of salt).

 

Orange are buildings. Purple is parking garage, which would be accessed by a new street that runs thru the middle into the garage with an 2nd exit on Harold St. Gray is the new street. Yellow would be the pedestrian realm. I would additionally cut out a little more space in the middle to create an actual "square" and just keep the name "Shepherd Square". Target would go on the lot at the corner of Westheimer and Shepherd with entrances from the both the street corner and the "square corner". More site planning would probably need to be done to help figure out how to get shipping in and out. I do have some ideas of how to make that work, but would need to put in more time and look at code requirements. There are a bunch of other little things like egress. Should there be skybridges if all parking is on one part of this block for both residents and customers, etc...

 

[X.R.]

37 minutes ago, cspwal said:

That is about 30 minutes of travel at rush hour, so one in midtown might still work, especially if this one is a full Target and the midtown one is a smaller city target

 

Yeah, this, and there is plenty of room for another two targets in addition to this one, especially if they are the Urban variety. The one in lower heights is incredibly busy. My first thought about this one was "is there enough parking." This place is going to be hammmmmmmmered. And that lot is split between all those different businesses. Even when that Randalls was sucking wind, the parking lot was at least half full on friday-sunday. Make that a target? Jeffblummygod.gif

[cspwal]

Maybe Target can move in to mixed use at Polk/Emancipation 

The site plan calls for parking, there's no grocery or big box within a mile, and it would be able to serve downtown & the east side of houston easily

 

[Triton]

1 hour ago, urbanize713 said:

Does this mean the Midtown mixed use one is not happening?

 

No, it indicates Target is actively trying to enter this more urban market. It bodes very well for a Midtown location now.

[clutchcity94]

51 minutes ago, Triton said:

 

No, it indicates Target is actively trying to enter this more urban market. It bodes very well for a Midtown location now.

Where is the Midtown Target going to be?

[Triton]

13 minutes ago, clutchcity94 said:

Where is the Midtown Target going to be?

 

 

[iah77]

5 hours ago, Texasota said:

No I completely agree with all of that. This is just a *huge* lot - I would've like it better if this was integrated into the announcement of redeveloping it as much higher density mixed use development.

 

Proposed compromise: it goes in here temporarily, but the redevelopment of the Tower shopping center at Montrose includes either a target or urban sized CityTarget.

 

That one opens, this one closes, and then this site gets redeveloped with a new Target integrated. And a Muji. And a Flying Tiger. 

 

Done. Make that happen, development gods!

I don't know if these two cross streets could even support many more large structures without some sort of major reconstruction or public transportation improvements... 

[swtsig]

I'd support a redevelopment here if it meant street and infrastructure upgrades to westheimer and streets like mcduffie, harold, kipling, hazard, etc. It's incredible to think the city has allowed this area, now officially a very high rent, high profile, cultural and mini-economic engine, to deteriorate to the condition that it has. "Gross negligence" is a term I would consider applicable at this point.

[nate4l1f3]

Workers tearing up the inside

[zaphod]

That's a big deal. What's Target's policy on having stores close together? I don't think the one on Sawyer would be under threat, but its only 2.5 miles away as the crow flies, similar to the ones at Uptown and by the Med Center.

 

Do we know if this is going to be a conventional store or possibly an urban format(which are honestly like a fancier walgreens with some extra stuff than a real target) location such as the two in Austin? I would guess if anything that if this is a full sized store any Target in midtown would be a little one.

Edited April 26, 2020 by zaphod

[Texasota]

I don't really agree with that description of their urban formats - in reality they can vary pretty widely depending on how much square footage there is. I've seen some CityTargets in Philly that are *almost* as small as your description, but most I've been to are nearly full-size, but split across two floors and integrated into larger buildings and developments. 

 

Given the size of that Randall's, I would assume this will be a full-size target (albeit on the small side). 

[zaphod]

Looking at the Target upcoming stores website, this store is going to be 63,000 sq. feet. That's about right for how big grocery stores tend to be. Looking through their other coming soons, I noticed a pattern:

 

There are a lot of tiny stores, about 15,000 square feet, which are in the bottom of mixed use developments. That's the size of a walgreens. I wonder how these are going to fare. Walmart tried this approach and then closed all of those stores later. There are some small-medium stores around 25,000 feet to 40,000 square feet being planned in various cities. I can't visualize what these look like.

 

The stores that are the size of this one(63k) don't seem to have renderings but ones that are a little larger are consistent with the "city target" design that generally do have actual hard goods. EDIT: They opened a 50,000 square foot store in phoenix, here is a news article with interior views. Looks fairly normal, just smaller. Not bad.

 

They are only building a handful of "big" traditional suburban Targets planned right now, it looks like Raleigh and Wilmington mostly, which are 114k or so sq feet. This is probably about how big the Sawyer store is if I had to guess.

 

Edited April 28, 2020 by zaphod

[Texasota]

That's a good find - very helpful for Target to list square footage.

 

For context, 25,000 sf is pretty standard for Trader Joe's. I've been in a CityTarget this size - basically the space for the registers gets cut way down, every department gets a pared down inventory, and the amount of inventory on hand goes down. Furniture, clothing, and most electronics pretty much go away. It's still a *lot* better than a Walgreens or CVS though. 

 

I've never been in a Target that's 15,000 sf. That's small enough that they would either need to seriously limit inventory for each department *or* have a narrow focus on one or two categories of goods.

 

Edit: Went through them, and it seems like the vast majority are at least 20,000 sf.

 

That said, there's a few that will actually be *less* than 15,000 sf. It will be interesting to see how they're planning to handle those...

Edited April 28, 2020 by Texasota

[CaptainJilliams]

Wow, this is awesome. I'm a little late to the party on this thread, but good to hear this space is getting filled! Definitely in a busy area of town.

[Highrise Tower]

Interior demolition permit issued.

 

[danielsonr]

5 hours ago, Highrise Tower said:

Interior demolition permit issued.

 

That’s weird. They’ve been doing interior demo for a month or two. Perhaps this is a different phase of demo?

[dbigtex56]

9 minutes ago, danielsonr said:

6 hours ago, Highrise Tower said:

 

That’s weird. They’ve been doing interior demo for a month or two. Perhaps this is a different phase of demo?

 

(delete)

Edited May 8, 2020 by dbigtex56

[Luminare]

While I don't care for the fact that this format of shopping center will remain, as I think this is a prime site for a unique type of redevelopment, a target at this location I would definitely take. I've always liked target as a general department store. This part of town is starving for any kind of department store. The closet target is either in Sawyer Heights, south of TMC or near Uptown. Again the format sucks, but the business is very good for the neighborhood.

[wilcal]

Late to this thread as well, but 63k sq ft is great! 

 

Anyone want to venture a guess when this will open? Surely by the Thanksgiving/holiday season push. 

[Geoff8201]

Question/Theory: With this new location coming, what happens to the San Felipe/610 location? Does it remain to serve the Galleria area as is... or does it become so valuable with the multiple high rises on one side of it and River Oaks District to the South, that it gets snatched up for more future development? At the very least I could see the large surface lot trading up for a multistory parking garage. Look at it on the map, that parking lot is the same size as the Arabella and Sky House combined.

Edited July 11, 2020 by Geoff8201

[clutchcity94]

55 minutes ago, Geoff8201 said:

Question/Theory: With this new location coming, what happens to the San Felipe/610 location? Does it remain to serve the Galleria area as is... or does it become so valuable with the multiple high rises on one side of it and River Oaks District to the South, that it gets snatched up for more future development? At the very least I could see the large surface lot trading up for a multistory parking garage. Look at it on the map, that parking lot is the same size as the Arabella and Sky House combined.

I was about to reply that I don’t think Target actually owns that lot, but when I looked up 4323 San Felipe on HCAD’s website....they do! The owner’s registered address is a PO Box in Minneapolis, where Target is headquartered, so I’m putting two and two together.

 

409,246 sq ft worth $36M!

[hindesky]

[Houston19514]

3 hours ago, Geoff8201 said:

Question/Theory: With this new location coming, what happens to the San Felipe/610 location? Does it remain to serve the Galleria area as is... or does it become so valuable with the multiple high rises on one side of it and River Oaks District to the South, that it gets snatched up for more future development? At the very least I could see the large surface lot trading up for a multistory parking garage. Look at it on the map, that parking lot is the same size as the Arabella and Sky House combined.

 

I don't see it going away because of this new (smaller) store at Shepherd Square.  I can imagine it might eventually  be redeveloped in a more urban/mixed use format, but I wouldn't expect it real soon.