While digging around my old files, I came across this post.
Hurricane Harvey made landfall on August 17, 2017. Hurricane Harvey caused destruction from Corpus Christi all the way through Southwestern Louisiana. The category four storm caused wind and flood damage at landfall, then proceeded to stall out and bombard the Southeast Texas coast with relentless rain for several days. Many lives were changed forever from this catastrophic storm.
The Atascocita, Humble, and Kingwood areas sustained major flood damage when the San Jacinto River and Lake Houston went into major flood stages. Kingwood was sealed off completely from the flooding for a couple of days. This shopping center which we have covered in the past, sustained damage to every single building.
Construction trailers can be seen in the parking lot here.
Marshalls and the recently closed Sports Authority section of the center.
Sports Authority was lit up and the sheetrock cut out from the flood damage. A few months later, this retailer was split in half and completely renovated for a World Plus Market and Buy Buy Baby.
Several Sports Authority shopping baskets were left outside.
The inside of the Marshalls was stripped out as well with the flooring gone as well. Marshalls Reopened early in 2018.
On a day when this shopping center would have been full of cars and shoppers, it was eerily quiet.
Inside of the Bel Furniture, all of the inventory was gone, and the structure gutted. This store also re-opened in early 2018.
The back side of Toys R Us which never truly reopened after the storm.
Here is an awesome post of the short-lived TRU clearance center that opened in late 2017.
My post from the store The Louisiana and Texas Retail Blogspot: Toys R Us Humble Texas evolution (southernretail.blogspot.com)
5 years later, all of these same retailers except for Justice are still here.
Same story here. The Bel Furniture moved into the former Toys R Us building last Summer.
Pier One Imports is now gone, but Ulta and Kirkland remain.
Another look at the Toys R Us. I wish I could have gotten this sign for my collection. It stayed up for several months after the storm passed.
A few more shots up-close of the Toys R Us.
Best Buy was the only retailer here that re-opened with a bare-bones store in November 2017. Some of the outlot restaurants opened in 2017 as well.
Fast forward to the Summer of 2019, you can't even tell that the center ever flooded out.
Fortunately, this shopping center mostly came back to life without too many vacancies. It's interesting how some places that were damaged during Hurricane Harvey have only just recently reopened. One place that comes to mind is the Monterey's Little Mexico restaurant in Dickinson. I thought that place was going to permanently close after Harvey damaged it given that Monterey's has been a chain in decline for quite a while, but it just came back a few months ago. Other places, such as the Fiesta Mart on Highway 6 in the Bear Creek area, have yet to return and presumably won't return.
ReplyDeleteRetail in my area was fortunate to not take on much damage during Harvey. There were two Krogers in my area, both on Cypresswood, which were significantly damaged, but both returned in late 2017 or so and have been fine since. There has been a lot of work on Cypresswood to try to repair that very flood prone area, which included closing the country club there and turning it into flood control, but I don't know if that'll work.
Bed, Bath, and Beyond is one retailer which is said to be really struggling these days. They recently moved on from a new CEO they had who had a Target background. It seems that trying to Target-ify the chain didn't work. I was at their Willowbrook store a month or two ago and I thought the renovation/redesign of the store looked pretty nice, but they certainly don't stock as many items as they used to. Hopefully the chain can turn things around or else they might suffer the same fate as Linens-n-Things and Anna's Linens.
That's interesting that the OfficeMax was converted into an Office Depot. It's hard to explain why some stores were converted and why some kept the OfficeMax name. With Staples becoming rare in this area, Office Depot/OfficeMax is about all we have left in this area.
Monterey's Little Mexico is a restaurant that does not seem like one that would reopen given their struggles. It is good that they came back to serve that area. I have heard rumors that Fiesta will return to their original flooded building on I-10 East so maybe there is hope for the Highway 6 location as well. The Cypresswood area certainly got flooded pretty bad in many spots, so it is good they got their Kroger stores back fairly quickly.
DeleteI need to visit the Deerbrook Bed, Bath, and Beyond store as they were advertising their renovations on an exterior banner. I probably would not buy anything, but it will be interesting to see what is going on over there. They are another example of failing to keep up with the times. It sounds like Buy Buy Baby is what is keeping the chain afloat right now.
Maybe since the Office Max was flooded out and had to be renovated was the reason why they switched to their Office Depot name. The store still smells new nearly 5 years since it reopened after Harvey. Toys R Us finally returned to Humble and I made a trip to the mall to document the store.