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Market Square Tower: 40-Story High-Rise At 777 Preston St.


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  • 2 weeks later...

They dropped off some matchbooks and koozies at the bar the other night.  They have signed some retail, which apparently includes a dog grooming joint and a yoga studio.  They aren't yet ready to reveal their tenant for the largest retail space.

 

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On June 14, 2016 at 10:53 AM, CrockpotandGravel said:


Please let it be a grocery store.

How big is the largest retail space that they have?

 

Phoencia is a good example of an urban grocery on two stories.  I don't know how many sq get it is.  Would the space in this tower even come close to the size of Phoencia?  And, if not, what are people's opinion as to the "smallest" effective size for an urban grocer?  

 

 

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On 6/16/2016 at 8:36 AM, Texasota said:

Smallest is hard to say, but 20,000 square feet is a good size for an urban grocer. Most Trader Joe's are roughly that size I believe.

 

You won't find grocers that small, ever, unless they're a specialty grocer or a rinky dink operator in smaller towns (Arlan's Market has a 15,000 square feet grocery store in Navasota...I think they have a meat area but that's about it as far as specialized department go), and I still think it's a hard sell for a Trader Joe's unless major strings were being pulled. H-E-B did open a 12,000 square feet store in downtown San Antonio, but that was the first downtown grocery store in S.A. and I'm not sure they're ready to attempt to replicate the store in the near future. 365 by Whole Foods average 30,000 square feet, and everything else just goes up. "Real" supermarkets tend to go for 40k-60k square feet, even in urban areas. The Randalls in Midtown is a little over 60,000 square feet.

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I actually think that a grocer could work in that amount of square footage. Looking at Dallas for examples, the Whole Foods off McKinney Avenue in Uptown if 44k SF so that probably wouldn't work, but the Trader Joe's off Cole Avenue in the Knox area is only around 15k SF. So Trader Joe's could work here for sure! Or even a smaller grocer that carries more specialty items like Dean & DeLuca or Royal Blue from Austin.

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58 minutes ago, rayjay said:

I actually think that a grocer could work in that amount of square footage. Looking at Dallas for examples, the Whole Foods off McKinney Avenue in Uptown if 44k SF so that probably wouldn't work, but the Trader Joe's off Cole Avenue in the Knox area is only around 15k SF. So Trader Joe's could work here for sure! Or even a smaller grocer that carries more specialty items like Dean & DeLuca or Royal Blue from Austin.

Like I said, if Trader Joe's ends up locating in downtown Houston it would require some serious string-pulling on the part of the developer, because it requires education levels AND high population counts, which I doubt downtown has. If you don't count the population currently incarcerated (believe it or not this will skew demographic counts), then the population count won't work at all given the relatively slim amount of people living there (downtown gets pretty dead on weekends), and if you DO, then the education level (which Trader Joe's looks at) will plummet.

 

If the square feet is small, and it is a grocery store, then maybe I can see Aldi locating there, though.

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9 hours ago, IronTiger said:

Like I said, if Trader Joe's ends up locating in downtown Houston it would require some serious string-pulling on the part of the developer, because it requires education levels AND high population counts, which I doubt downtown has. If you don't count the population currently incarcerated (believe it or not this will skew demographic counts), then the population count won't work at all given the relatively slim amount of people living there (downtown gets pretty dead on weekends), and if you DO, then the education level (which Trader Joe's looks at) will plummet.

 

If the square feet is small, and it is a grocery store, then maybe I can see Aldi locating there, though.

I'd submit that Phoenicia requires a higher education level than Trader Joe's, and it's thriving downtown.

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They have a 19003 square foot space available in one block, and it apparently has  18-22 for ceilings.  We can look to the other side of downtown Houston for an easy example of how a grocer could make that work.  Put in a mezanine over part of the space and voila, you can have 28,000 square feet (which is what the apparently -successful Phoenicia has).

Edited by Houston19514
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5 hours ago, MarathonMan said:

I'd submit that Phoenicia requires a higher education level than Trader Joe's, and it's thriving downtown.

Yeah, but local businesses don't scrutinize location the same way national chains do (that goes for everything). Best case scenario is an ALDI or a specialty gourmet grocer the developer has coaxed in, and even those are doubtful (remember, no confirmation that there WILL be grocery).

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18 hours ago, IronTiger said:

 

You won't find grocers that small, ever, unless they're a specialty grocer or a rinky dink operator in smaller towns (Arlan's Market has a 15,000 square feet grocery store in Navasota...I think they have a meat area but that's about it as far as specialized department go), and I still think it's a hard sell for a Trader Joe's unless major strings were being pulled. H-E-B did open a 12,000 square feet store in downtown San Antonio, but that was the first downtown grocery store in S.A. and I'm not sure they're ready to attempt to replicate the store in the near future. 365 by Whole Foods average 30,000 square feet, and everything else just goes up. "Real" supermarkets tend to go for 40k-60k square feet, even in urban areas. The Randalls in Midtown is a little over 60,000 square feet.

 

Sure you will. HEB does not really build many urban grocery stores, so it's not a great example. You really need to look at denser cities to find better examples, or at grocery stores built 10-20 years ago that are still open and busy (older Whole Foods locations for example. ) Trader Joe's specifically might not be interested in the location, but the size of their stores is totally in line.

 

Locally, Phoenicia is a great example. Does the 28,000 sf include the MKT bar area? I could definitely see one company putting a grocery store in the larger space and using a neighboring space as a quasi-attached bar/restaurant. 

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My go-to store in Boston was Foodie's Urban Market. It's only 8,500 square feet. You obviously couldn't get "everything" you'd want, but it had a small produce section, a nice meat/cheese counter, one organic aisle, and all the basic essentials (just not a ton of choices for things like chips, bread, milk, etc...).  It did a booming lunch business on Washington St. with the working crowd. Something like that would work well in Market Square. Offer something for the lunch crowd, and basic essentials (milk, cheese, bread, toothpaste, iceberg lettuce, etc...) for the local residents. 

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