I have mixed feelings about the Houston retail economy. Over the past year some developments such as Plazamericas, Almeda Mall, Pasadena Town Square, and The Pavilions of Houston have attracted several new businesses. Other developments such as Greenspoint Mall and Northwest Mall are having a hard time keeping tenants. There have also been several redevelopment projects in former big box locations, but new retail development in Houston seems to have slowed significantly. Post your comment below and get the discussion going.
Houston is going, but stores have to do something different (shopping experience, selection, etc) to compete with the giants that saturate your market - there are a lot of WalMarts etc, and if one merely tries to compete on price/location, that's not good, as stores such as Kmart and Albertsons have shown in their disappearance.
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That is true; there is a small selection of retailers that build stores here. Almost every suburban area of Houston has the same retailers and chain restaurants. We need to get some more variety in the Houston area. Belk has stores in Texas but not Houston, and there are several others that do not enter the Houston market. When new stores enter Houston they usually choose the overcrowded West and Southwest Houston areas to start their expansion into Houston while Northeast and East Houston is under served by retailers.
ReplyDeleteIn my blog, I wrote a large section on departed hypermarket Auchan. Even in 2000, they wanted to build a few more Auchan stores in Houston before moving on to other Texas cities. Too bad that never materialized...
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(@ Pseudo3D) I visited the last of the Auchan stores in Houston in their final days. The store at that point was mostly empty and it really magnified the size of those stores. Auchan reminded me of the Schwegmann stores in New Orleans that closed in the late 1990's.
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