Heath, TX Tom Thumb coming soon

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pseudo3d
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Heath, TX Tom Thumb coming soon

Post by pseudo3d »

Another Tom Thumb coming to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, to Heath, Texas (east side of Dallas). Once again, it's a modest size (55k square feet, come on, get with the program), but what makes it bizarre is its location. Despite the fact that there's vacancy near the freeway (a former Sports Authority in what looks like may have been a former Albertsons), it's about four miles off the freeway in a rural area. The intersection of McLendon and Laurence is an intersection of only two-way roads, not even signalized. Is Albertsons nostalgic for the days when it was placing stores in some of the worst locations reasonably possible? :shock:

http://inforney.com/business/item/5132- ... evelopment
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Re: Heath, TX Tom Thumb coming soon

Post by architect »

pseudo3d wrote:Another Tom Thumb coming to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, to Heath, Texas (east side of Dallas). Once again, it's a modest size (55k square feet, come on, get with the program), but what makes it bizarre is its location. Despite the fact that there's vacancy near the freeway (a former Sports Authority in what looks like may have been a former Albertsons), it's about four miles off the freeway in a rural area. The intersection of McLendon and Laurence is an intersection of only two-way roads, not even signalized. Is Albertsons nostalgic for the days when it was placing stores in some of the worst locations reasonably possible? :shock:

http://inforney.com/business/item/5132- ... evelopment
Actually, this area is a bit deceptive. Rockwall-Heath High School is top notch, and as a result, many families have been flocking to the area over the last couple of years due to the balance of having a good quality of life while also being within a reasonable drive of Downtown Dallas (or at least more reasonable than the far northern suburbs such as Frisco and McKinney). Numerous housing developments are going in around this area, so while this intersection feels rural now, it will be completely different by the time this store opens (which won't be until 2018). By building in Heath, Tom Thumb can be the first to the punch in this rapidly growing area which will only continue to expand as Rockwall is essentially built out along the south side of the city.

Side note: it is interesting to watch Albertsons put the Tom Thumb banner back on a growth trajectory. Although I disagree with many of their management decisions as a company, I appreciate that they are at least attempting to innovate and grow within the market while also forcing Kroger (and HEB if they decide to enter the market) to step up their game.
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Re: Heath, TX Tom Thumb coming soon

Post by pseudo3d »

architect wrote:
pseudo3d wrote:Another Tom Thumb coming to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, to Heath, Texas (east side of Dallas). Once again, it's a modest size (55k square feet, come on, get with the program), but what makes it bizarre is its location. Despite the fact that there's vacancy near the freeway (a former Sports Authority in what looks like may have been a former Albertsons), it's about four miles off the freeway in a rural area. The intersection of McLendon and Laurence is an intersection of only two-way roads, not even signalized. Is Albertsons nostalgic for the days when it was placing stores in some of the worst locations reasonably possible? :shock:

http://inforney.com/business/item/5132- ... evelopment
Actually, this area is a bit deceptive. Rockwall-Heath High School is top notch, and as a result, many families have been flocking to the area over the last couple of years due to the balance of having a good quality of life while also being within a reasonable drive of Downtown Dallas (or at least more reasonable than the far northern suburbs such as Frisco and McKinney). Numerous housing developments are going in around this area, so while this intersection feels rural now, it will be completely different by the time this store opens (which won't be until 2018). By building in Heath, Tom Thumb can be the first to the punch in this rapidly growing area which will only continue to expand as Rockwall is essentially built out along the south side of the city.

Side note: it is interesting to watch Albertsons put the Tom Thumb banner back on a growth trajectory. Although I disagree with many of their management decisions as a company, I appreciate that they are at least attempting to innovate and grow within the market while also forcing Kroger (and HEB if they decide to enter the market) to step up their game.
A year from now it will still look closer to the same (5 years maybe), but at this point in time, even with new homes and whatnot, the area is just not suited to retail at all yet, especially how far it is from major roads. Major stores often decide to build on the fringes of any growing area, but chose to anchor themselves to a highway or a highway-like road (and I bet the traffic counts at that intersection are nowhere where they need to be; after all, it's just a four-way stop). They're either going to need to put this on on ice or it will end up closing in a few years.
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Re: Heath, TX Tom Thumb coming soon

Post by architect »

pseudo3d wrote:
architect wrote:
pseudo3d wrote:Another Tom Thumb coming to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, to Heath, Texas (east side of Dallas). Once again, it's a modest size (55k square feet, come on, get with the program), but what makes it bizarre is its location. Despite the fact that there's vacancy near the freeway (a former Sports Authority in what looks like may have been a former Albertsons), it's about four miles off the freeway in a rural area. The intersection of McLendon and Laurence is an intersection of only two-way roads, not even signalized. Is Albertsons nostalgic for the days when it was placing stores in some of the worst locations reasonably possible? :shock:

http://inforney.com/business/item/5132- ... evelopment
Actually, this area is a bit deceptive. Rockwall-Heath High School is top notch, and as a result, many families have been flocking to the area over the last couple of years due to the balance of having a good quality of life while also being within a reasonable drive of Downtown Dallas (or at least more reasonable than the far northern suburbs such as Frisco and McKinney). Numerous housing developments are going in around this area, so while this intersection feels rural now, it will be completely different by the time this store opens (which won't be until 2018). By building in Heath, Tom Thumb can be the first to the punch in this rapidly growing area which will only continue to expand as Rockwall is essentially built out along the south side of the city.

Side note: it is interesting to watch Albertsons put the Tom Thumb banner back on a growth trajectory. Although I disagree with many of their management decisions as a company, I appreciate that they are at least attempting to innovate and grow within the market while also forcing Kroger (and HEB if they decide to enter the market) to step up their game.
A year from now it will still look closer to the same (5 years maybe), but at this point in time, even with new homes and whatnot, the area is just not suited to retail at all yet, especially how far it is from major roads. Major stores often decide to build on the fringes of any growing area, but chose to anchor themselves to a highway or a highway-like road (and I bet the traffic counts at that intersection are nowhere where they need to be; after all, it's just a four-way stop). They're either going to need to put this on on ice or it will end up closing in a few years.
Actually, Lawrence Drive from Rockwall to this intersection is already being widened and a traffic signal is to be installed soon at the Lawrence/549 intersection. Although Rockwall is relatively close to Heath, the drive into Rockwall along Lawrence Drive can be extremely congested at peak times at it is the only major route to I-30. As a result, there is a huge demand for a neighborhood grocer to serve Heath. Due to the fact that growth in DFW has moved so quickly for years now, grocers and other neighborhood retailers have often built stores in anticipation of infrastructure upgrades in an area, in order to put down roots within the community and prevent competitors from buying the best store sites. This was actually what happened with the Tom Thumb in north Rockwall, which was extremely isolated when first built. Now, the area is growing like crazy and Kroger recently opened a store to the south along 205. Kroger also has made similar moves in many areas around DFW, particularly with a full blown Marketplace store outside of Flower Mound which was extremely isolated when built, but now has brought growth around it and is well trafficked.
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Re: Heath, TX Tom Thumb coming soon

Post by klkla »

I'm not familiar with the area on a first hand basis but I see that the average household income is $134,000 and the area saw a 92% population increase 2000 and 2014. Currently around 8,000 people live there. It sounds like Albertson's is willing to build early to get their foot in the door.
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Re: Heath, TX Tom Thumb coming soon

Post by pseudo3d »

klkla wrote:I'm not familiar with the area on a first hand basis but I see that the average household income is $134,000 and the area saw a 92% population increase 2000 and 2014. Currently around 8,000 people live there. It sounds like Albertson's is willing to build early to get their foot in the door.
Fair enough, I checked the traffic at around 4 pm and was "orange" at that intersection (inbound 549 and both ways going north) but could be the school traffic. Well, we'll see. I hope they at least leave enough space for an expansion later. :roll:
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Re: Heath, TX Tom Thumb coming soon

Post by storewanderer »

56,000 square feet seems to be the standard size of most new Safeway Stores built from 1989-2015 so I am not sure why they would leave room for expansion since they are clearly going after the "Safeway" model in almost everything they do. You can get quite a bit into a 56,000 square foot store and it isn't too cumbersome for the customer to get in and out of. Once you start hitting the 65,000-75,000 square foot level, you really need to have a large mix (they could have this if they expanded drug more), lower pricing to drive volume (they REALLY don't have this), and better staffing levels. I have seen some pretty crazy parking lots at some of the newer larger higher volume Kroger/Frys Marketplace Stores, where the parking lot alone is a 5 minute or so "in and out" experience. The parking lot at nearby Safeway locations (which are largely deserted) is about a 50 second experience since there isn't much going in and it is easy to go in and park. But not everyone wants to deal with a crowded parking lot...

There are good points to the smaller stores. Parking lots are smaller and easier to navigate. They are a bit cheaper to build, light, heat, stock, and insure... Safeway/Albertsons clearly is not trying to be a price leader, maybe they are focusing more on product quality, they seem to be going for the lower volume/higher price/higher profit margin model. So they really don't need very large stores.
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Re: Heath, TX Tom Thumb coming soon

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote:56,000 square feet seems to be the standard size of most new Safeway Stores built from 1989-2015 so I am not sure why they would leave room for expansion since they are clearly going after the "Safeway" model in almost everything they do. You can get quite a bit into a 56,000 square foot store and it isn't too cumbersome for the customer to get in and out of. Once you start hitting the 65,000-75,000 square foot level, you really need to have a large mix (they could have this if they expanded drug more), lower pricing to drive volume (they REALLY don't have this), and better staffing levels. I have seen some pretty crazy parking lots at some of the newer larger higher volume Kroger/Frys Marketplace Stores, where the parking lot alone is a 5 minute or so "in and out" experience. The parking lot at nearby Safeway locations (which are largely deserted) is about a 50 second experience since there isn't much going in and it is easy to go in and park. But not everyone wants to deal with a crowded parking lot...

There are good points to the smaller stores. Parking lots are smaller and easier to navigate. They are a bit cheaper to build, light, heat, stock, and insure... Safeway/Albertsons clearly is not trying to be a price leader, maybe they are focusing more on product quality, they seem to be going for the lower volume/higher price/higher profit margin model. So they really don't need very large stores.
Eh...maybe I'm just spoiled by my 70k+ square feet H-E-B stores, though in that store there are whole aisles I pass up because I don't care for what they offer (they moved the magazines into a full aisle, and the other stuff--big seasonal dept., cheap toys, etc.), and of course, they do have a reasonable HBA mix. Plus with a 120k+ square foot H-E-B I've learned the hard way that "nearly twice as much floor space" does not mean "nearly twice as much selection" (not even close!)

Now that I think about it, there have been stores of comparable sizes (both H-E-B and Kroger) that can be either great or are absolutely terrible just based on merchandising ("Terrible" stores include some ratty downscale H-E-B stores, including a 2011 new-build and a run-down 2003 store that once was an Albertsons, and the south College Station Kroger store, the one that DIDN'T close...one of my big gripes about it is the produce section is average size square footage-wise but too much of it is non-produce, like a large bulk shelled nut display in the center).

They don't need a conspicuous grassy area to one of the store, all they need is for it to not be hemmed in with stores on both sides.
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Re: Heath, TX Tom Thumb coming soon

Post by storewanderer »

So I think the combined company knows this 56,000 square foot model is one that will not be "too much" and should be "just right."

This store also sounds a bit speculative so building too large could be a nasty formula for disaster if the store starts out slow.

By the same token speculatively opening in an area that is not yet very well developed is, in some cases, just a way to set up for disappointment. They can open this store and run it at a loss for 3-5 years until the area develops out. Usually this sort of low volume operation with lightly stocked perimeters, limited staffing, etc. is not very good and turns away shoppers. Then right as the area has finally grown enough and they are finally starting to turn a profit, Wal Mart, Kroger, WinCo, or some other stronger competitor will come in and open up a newer, more modern, better priced store nearby (looks like no shortage of space) and sweep up a chunk of this store's business.
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Re: Heath, TX Tom Thumb coming soon

Post by pseudo3d »

So the store did open sometime in 2019 without much fanfare (just a Facebook post), and the intersection has been rebuilt, with four lanes each way (sort of, only one southbound lane goes south). It has a Tom Thumb gas station (Tom Thumb Express, much like the Albertsons Express of old...but I don't know if it's just branding and it's still the same Safeway convenience store), Florida decor, Starbucks, a display of precut vegetables, warehouse ceilings, concrete flooring (looks slightly tinted brown, not default grey but not as brown-colored as a lot of modernish Kroger stores look), all pretty standard, mid-line stuff.
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