Howdy folks, and welcome back to Houston Historic Retail! Today we’re checking out an old Eckerd that is now hosting a tiny Walgreens along with a few other tenants. The history of 12620 FM 1960 is a bit odd. The corner originally hosted John Eagle Honda, opting to move closer to the highway, leaving this corner for redevelopment. Despite hosting two drug stores, the building has spent most of its life vacant. As an Eckerd drug store, the location was only open for a few weeks. The store’s grand opening took place in early 2004 and would quickly be overshadowed …
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Vintage Ads: Celebrating the 1971 Grand Opening of Braeswood Square
Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston This edition of Vintage Ads will take us back to the grand opening of the Braeswood Square shopping center near Bellaire in Southwest Houston. Braeswood Square’s grand opening was on July 8, 1971 and we’ll be looking at various ads from the July 7, 1971 edition of The Bellaire Texan newspaper which is freely available to read at The Portal to Texas History website. Braeswood Square has been in the news here at Houston Historic Retail in the recent past as the last Belden’s supermarket …
Keep readingRetail News: The gas station in an ex-Walgreens near West Oaks Mall, finally opens! Welcome Now & Forever Plus
Well, folks, the day has finally come. The former Walgreens at Westheimer and Highway 6 has reopened. This will mark the building’s first permanent retail tenant since closing as a pharmacy around 2017. Now and Forever also marks the return of a gas station to this intersection. Before the most recent expansion of Highway 6, every corner of the intersection, except the mall, hosted a gas station. This gas station, however, aims to be a bit different. The space is huge, and while some area was built out around the checkout, I would wager that 3/4 of the former Walgreens …
Keep readingNow & Taking Forever, who’s behind the new Walgreen’s Gas Station on Highway 6?
Update 7/17/22: Over 2 weeks later, I realized that a draft version of this was published, well the full thing is here now! Anyone whose driven near West Oaks Mall recently has probably seen the work being done to a former Walgreens building at the corner of Westheimer and Highway 6. If you’ve been following this blog for a while you may have seen the building before. We checked it out in 2019 as a Spirit Halloween, and more recently when the pumps were installed last year. If you don’t know Now & Forever they about 10 stores throughout the …
Keep readingWalgreens as a Family Dollar, now that’s more like it!
Howdy folks and welcome back to Houston Historic Retail. A little while back we took a look at a Walgreens that’s now stunting as a Dollar Tree. Based on your reactions, and overall view counts, we didn’t like it. So this week we’re instead trying out another former Walgreens. This time under the other side of the “Dollar Family Tree”. This Missouri City Walgreens originally opened in 2004 at 3403 Texas Pkwy, Missouri City, TX 77489. A nice-looking freestanding location it was not actually brand new, but instead, a replacement for a shopping center-based location after Randall’s left Missouri City …
Keep readingRising water might scare Walgreens, but Dollar Tree doesn’t seem to mind
Howdy folks, and welcome back to HHR! Today, we’re heading back to a familiar topic: drugstores in Houston. Recently we took a look at a couple of “Speckerd’s” locations, and a Walgreens now selling Skechers. However, today’s former pharmacy falls into a slightly different category. This is a Walgreens that didn’t just close without a replacement, but rather this store relocated nearby. While I don’t have anything to explicitly back this up, the proximity to White Oak Bayou is likely part of what inspired Walgreens to move further away from the waterway. Despite this obvious risk, another retailer has decided …
Keep readingBlue Ridge Blight, a 42 year old Kroger only open for 7, finally has a promising new future
Fort Bend County is not an area one generally associates with urban blight. Most folk’s exposure to the county is driving along the highways, which mostly pass through relatively affluent areas. While there are some pockets, of less valuable properties, it’s nothing compared with what you might see driving the highways of Houston. To most, it would seem that truly decrepit areas don’t exist within the boundaries of Fort Bend, but this is far from the truth. Today we’re taking a look at an attempt to go back and fix a long-ignored shopping center in Fort Bend, Houston. Let’s start …
Keep readingA “Sketchy” former Walgreens, where you can only get shoes!
Howdy folks, and welcome back to HHR. Today we’re again tackling our overcrowding of drug stores, a topic we’ve covered once before, and will come up again in a second part. However, today we’re not checking out an Eckerd but rather a Walgreens! As mentioned previously, Walgreen’s building campaign really began as a response to the entry of CVS into the Houston market. Both Walgreens and Eckerd had steady growth in Houston during 90s and early 2000s, expanding to match new neighborhoods. As well, older strip center locations were replaced with freestanding stores capable of providing drive-thru pharmacy services. One …
Keep readingThere’s news round the corner! Gas Station coming to Former Walgreens Highway 6 and Westheimer
Howdy Folks, and welcome back to some retail news at the corner of Highway 6 and Westheimer. It seems that two shopping centers, at the crossroads, are coming closer to 100% occupancy again for the first time in nearly 20 years! This intersection has long been considered to essentially be a no-mans lands in terms of retail. Beyond West Oaks Mall’s initial success which is long gone, the two power centers sitting catty corner both managed to maintain decent tenancy, but have more recently struggled. With the Village at West Oaks (Northwest Corner) losses included longtime anchors Barnes & Noble …
Keep readingSafeway, Walgreens, and Kmart One of West Houston’s best preserved shopping centers
Howdy folks, and welcome back! It should be no secret by now, that I have a bit of an obsession with Safeway/AppleTree. While I don’t really remember Safeway’s presence in Houston, I do have lots of distinct memories of AppleTree. In learning about AppleTree, I’ve also learned lots about Safeway. One fact, I didn’t originally know, was that most Safeways in Houston were built with an adjacent Eckerd location. It seems that the deal allowed Safeway to have a strong smaller tenant as a guaranteed neighbor, and as a bonus early Safeway locations weren’t built with pharmacies, so Eckerd would …
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