Howdy folks, and welcome back to Houston Historic Retail. Today, we’re looking at something that seems a bit mundane but is actually quite special. Located at 9669 FM 1960 W, Humble, TX 77338, this is technically Houston’s newest Big Lots, but the history of this building interests me. As keen-eyed readers have likely already noticed, this Big Lots juts right up to a Sam’s Club in an unusual setup. While this isn’t the only Sam’s to touch other retailers, by the time this store opened (1992), Walmart was adamant about building freestanding stores whenever possible. So that leaves the question of how did this Sam’s end up in a strip center? Well, it didn’t start that way; the building that Big Lots, the beauty store, and the gym (among other things) now occupy was originally a Wal-Mart. It was by design that Sams and Wal-Mart butted up to each other, and the story behind that is what I find so fascinating. These two stores were one of only a handful to be built conjoined. This was shortly after the debut of Fresh Grocery at Sam’s, and the idea was that customers would be willing to split the shopping between the two. This location was not the only Sam’s to be near a Wal-Mart in Houston; heck, down in Texas City, the locations built next to the Mall of the Mainland nearly touched, but alas, this is our only physically connected example in Houston. A few other locations were constructed like this across the U.S.; however, the concept would never take off.
This experiment was started years after Super Centers had been piloted, and in the end, that was chosen as the method going forward. While Sam’s and Wal-Mart would continue to share properties, the concept of the one (two, there was no way to go directly from inside Wal-Mart to Sam’s or vise versa) stop shop would not succeed. Instead, Wal-Mart would opt to build Super Centers adjacent to Sam’s. In 2003, shortly after the competing Kmart across 1960 had closed, Wal-Mart moved this location to its own freestanding Super Center. In the end, the allure of actual one-stop shopping, plus the differences in the customer bases between a Wal-Mart and a Sam’s Club, made separating the two much more straightforward. After Wal-Mart left this building, it sat vacant for a few years before being slowly divided up. A few side-by-side Walmart and Sam’s Club locations do still exist, but for the most part, the concept has taken influence from the Monroe Doctrine, leaving the two concepts as two distinct spheres of influence.
Lived in Humble since 1997…I never understood why they didn’t just blow this Walmart out into the adjoining Sam’s club and make it a Supercenter while moving Sam’s club across the street into the old Super Kmart, instead opting to build a whole new Walmart Supercenter a block over. This Walmart was only a decade old when shuttered, and sat vacant for two decades after until just the last couple of years.
I was in Albany, NY earlier this year and saw what is the largest Wal-Mart in the United States over by Crossgates Mall. It is a two-story Wal-Mart Supercenter, but that’s not how it started. It was initially a two-story stack with a regular Wal-Mart on one level and a Sam’s Club on the other. At some point, Wal-Mart decided to close the Sam’s and turn the structure into what it is today, the US’ largest Wal-Mart Supercenter. I saw it, but I didn’t bother to go in it even knowing the unique status of that store because, well, it is a Wal-Mart! The bigger they are, the more ugliness there is to see. Now, Crossgates Mall, that is a different story!
I believe there is also a stacked Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club over by NorthPark Center in Dallas in between the two Targets very close to one another, the Super Target and the Medallion Target. I have no idea if the two stores touch there or if that would even count! Personally, that stack isn’t nearly as interesting as the Walgreens pharmacy in an old KFC over near there, but unfortunately, I believe that Kentucky Fried Walgreens didn’t last very long…probably for obvious reasons.