Here are the Houston-area stores HEB plans to open in 2018

It’s been a year of growth for San Antonio-based H-E-B Grocery Co. in Houston, and 2018 will be no different.

In 2017, the company opened two locations and a Joe V’s concept in the greater Houston area, introduced a new delivery option and supported Hurricane Harvey relief efforts. Next year, H-E-B has plans to debut six new stores and a manufacturing plant, a spokesperson confirmed.

These stores opened in 2017:

• Champion Forest H-E-B, at 20311 Champion Forest Drive in Spring, opened on April 26 with 130,000 square feet.
• Joe V’s Smart Shop #8 opened at 2929 FM 1960 Road on May 3, according to the discount concept’s website.
• H-E-B Baytown opened at 6430 Garth Road on Dec. 6, according to ABC-13. It’s near the San Jacinto Mall.

Here are the stores slated to open in 2018:

• H-E-B in Richmond near the Brazos Town Center at 23500 Berry Parkway will open in early 2018, according to Community Impact Newspaper.
• H-E-B in Fulshear at the northwest corner of Fulshear Bend Drive and FM 1463 will open in early 2018. H-E-B purchased 28 acres in 2015 inside the 3,200-acre master-planned community of Cross Creek Ranch developed by Houston-based The Johnson Development Corp.
• H-E-B’s location inside Houston-based Fidelis Realty Partners’ Mont Belvieu Marketplace is expected to open in the spring. Located at the corner of Interstate 10 and FM 3180/Eagle Drive, it broke ground in August.
• H-E-B Bellaire at 5130 Cedar will open in the spring. The company demolished the original building in February and will open a new 70,000-square-foot store on top of a two-level parking garage.
• H-E-B at the corner of FM 2920 and Gosling near Spring is expected to open in the summer.
• H-E-B in the Heights at 2300 N. Shepherd Drive will open in early fall 2018. The 92,000-square-foot store also is expected to be a multilevel location like the new Bellaire store.

Additionally, construction is already underway for the company’s new 64,000-square-foot snack manufacturing plant at 10000 1/2 Genard Road. It’s expected to open in early fall 2018.

And that’s not all — the grocer has at least three other stores on the horizon:

• An H-E-B inside Houston-based Midway Cos.’ mixed-use project Buffalo Heights won’t open until spring 2019. But construction for the 96,000-square-foot store that will offer multilevel parking and a walk-up coffee and food concept began in May.
• The company’s new store inside Fidelis Realty Partners’ Meyerland Plaza isn’t expected to break ground until early 2019, per a December press release. It will replace the grocer’s original Meyerland-area store that closed after Hurricane Harvey flooded the location.
• H-E-B also is planning a store at the northeast corner of state Highway 288 and North MacGregor Way. In March, the Houston City Council approved a $13.85 million deal to purchase the land from Houston Community College. The city will then sublease the property to H-E-B. However, a date for construction has not been set, a spokesperson said.

All of this growth comes at a time when Houston brokers are expecting a slowdown in retail development. Kenneth Katz of Baker Katz LLC expects grocery stores to adapt by building storefronts in tighter tracts of land in urban cores — which H-E-B is doing with the Buffalo Heights store.

And grocery stores are now competing more with e-commerce and delivery options following major changes such as Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods. Yet H-E-B is still performing very well, Rusty Tamlyn, senior managing director of HFF Inc.’s investment sales group, told the Houston Business Journal in July.

“H-E-B is the gold standard in Texas of what people want to buy,” Tamlyn said. “They individualize their stores to the neighborhood.”

At a recent panel, Scott McClelland, Houston president of H-E-B, explained how the grocery chain has evolved to meet consumer demands for curbside delivery and convenience.

“I refer to it as retail Darwinism — if you’re not effective and efficient at what you do, then going forward, you will not survive,” McClelland said. “Never underestimate demand for convenience.”

The grocer has over 300 stores in Texas and Mexico and produces sales of more than $23 billion. H-E-B is also Houston’s largest for-profit private employer with 24,437 employees as of June, according to HBJ research.