Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston Happy new year, Houston Historic Retail readers! Today’s topic is a bit of a random retail post. Those of you familiar with my guest blog posts here at HHR know that while I enjoy discussing retail history, I am not much of a retail photographer. The wonderful retail photographers out there deserve a lot of credit for their skill in …
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Retail News: Big Lots closing Willowbrook store
Discounter Big Lots has recently announced the close of its 7323 Farm to Market 1960 Rd W, Houston, TX 77070 location. The location represents one of three in a 6-mile stretch of 1960 from Jones Road to Veterans Memorial. The store is the newest of the three, opening in 2011 in a former Toys ‘R Us, which had moved to a larger space adjacent to Willowbrook Mall. According to Big Lots, its recent store closures …
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Vintage Ads: Compact Disc Arrived at Houston Retailers 40 Years Ago
Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston In 1983, the home entertainment options most American households had were quite limited compared to modern times. Most homes had televisions in 1983, but most people could not do much more than receive local broadcast TV channels on their TVs at that time as cable/satellite TV was still trying to establish itself. There were video games and other home computers …
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Retail News: Target proposed for Heights area residential tower
A block in the Heights at W. 26th between Durham and N. Shepherd is currently undergoing the planning stages of redevelopment. At the end of 2022, WGS Retail Investments announced plans to redevelop the existing business on this land. Their plan involves demolishing the industrial sheds and former homes that had all turned to retail use by the 21st century. The plan as it stands now is to construct a low-rise 8-story residential tower, with …
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Retail News: Stafford gains a Target location, and P Terry’s makes Houston promises… again
Target has filed permits for a new store in the Stafford mixed-use development, The Grid. Likely to be located next to the present Costco Business Center, the new store will come in around 125,000 Square Feet. This will be an average-size store for Target, about 20k Sq ft less than their new Katy store. For comparison, the Walmart across West Airport Blvd from The Grid is almost 100,000 Square Feet larger, representing one of the …
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Ollie’s Katy Excursion, how Houston’s third Bargain Outlet makes out
Howdy, folks, and welcome back to HHR. Today we’re completing a trilogy by checking out the third and currently final Ollie’s location to open in the Houston area. All this “Ollie’s Fever” started nearly two years ago, when HHR broke the news that Ollie’s was coming to the former Steeplechase Target on Jones Road. When that Ollie’s finally opened in September of the same year, I visited and was quite underwhelmed. Having visited Ollie’s first …
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Retail News: Almeda Mall down an anchor after Burlington moves North
Burlington has moved out of Alemda Mall, creating a major anchor vacancy at the regional mall for the first time in nearly 15 years. The space which Burlington occupied at the mall was originally a JC Penney until the chain closed the location in 2006. The anchor spot remained vacant until 2009 when Burlington (at the time) Coat Factory moved in. Burlington never utilized the entire JCP space, leaving the second floor untouched and a …
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Walmart’s latest round of closures hits Katy
Howdy, folks, and welcome back to HHR. I’m here with unfortunate news for residents in the middle of Katy, as the Walmart Neighborhood Market at Westheimer Parkway and Falcons Landing Drive is preparing to close. The news was first leaked on Nextdoor and later confirmed by the store manager to Covering Katy. Walmart regularly eliminates underperforming stores and is closing seven other locations for this year. While Walmart’s claim of underperformance is substantiated by the …
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Faith in Ollie’s Bargain Outlet restored!
Howdy folks, and welcome back to Houston Historic Retail. Today, we’re visiting the Ollie’s in the former Babie’s ‘R Us at across from Baybrook Mall. The last time we saw the inside of this store, it was the short-lived Dick’s Warehouse Sale. Ollie’s Bargain Outlet has since remodeled the building, removing most remaining traces of BRU, except for the flooring. They have also embiggened the floor space, adding room for mattresses and box springs. This …
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Return to Almeda Mall to see Toys R Us
Howdy folks, and welcome back to Houston Historic Retail. Today we’re heading back to Almeda Mall, where I haven’t been in a few years. Long-time readers of the blog may remember that HHR’s first “big success” was the Chron republishing some of my photos of Northwest Mall after it had closed. On the advice of readers and my own curiosity, I quickly ventured to Almeda Mall afterward. While I knew the malls were identical twins, …
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