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HEB Coming to Bunker Hill Road
Norm Rowland
The Memorial Examiner

A 125,000-square-foot H-E-B supermarket will anchor the Village Plaza at Bunker Hill, a 44-acre development that will also include restaurants and retail service establishments on the northwest corner of the intersection of Bunker Hill Road and Interstate 10.

The new center, which is being developed by Fidelis Realty Partners, will also include PetSmart, Circuit City and about 35,000 square feet of restaurants. Prospective tenants have signed agreements for about 30 percent of the proposed space, according to Lynn Davis of Fidelis.

The impending establishment of an H-E-B at the site, previously occupied by Daniel Industries and a rock quarry, had been rumored for months but could not be confirmed.

“We didn’t close on the last piece of land we needed until Dec. 29,” she said. “We didn’t really have a deal until then.”

Davis said the H-E-B is expected to open in mid-2008 and will coincide, more or less, with the completion of the Interstate 10 expansion project and the widening of Bunker Hill Road north of the freeway.

Access to Village Plaza will be from Bunker Hill and the I-10 service road and improvements to both were key in the selection of the site.

The city of Houston and the Memorial City Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone are cooperating to widen Bunker Hill Road from I-10 to Long Point Road. It was first announced that the street, now two lanes, would be increased to four lanes.

Neighborhood groups protested widening the street in residential areas south of Briar Branch Creek but did not oppose the expansion to four lanes in the commercial area north of the creek.

The creek is on the northern border of the Fidelis property and separates it from the Alexan Bunker Hill, a 398-unit apartment complex being built by Trammell Crow Residential.

Davis said Fidelis left room in its plat for a proposed street, Claret Lane, to be constructed between its property and the apartments.

At present, the only access to the apartments is from Pine Lane Terrace across the street from Woodview Elementary School.

Neighborhood interest in Claret Lane increased when plans for the apartment complex were released but a recent report presented at a TIRZ directors meeting concluded that the cost of the street would be prohibitive.

Davis said the H-E-B store, which will be one of the largest and best-equipped in the Houston area, will draw shoppers from both sides of I-10, as will Circuit City and PetSmart.

“We’re not going to do a lifestyle center,” she said. “We don’t want to discourage anyone at either the high end or the low end.

“What we want the neighbors to understand is that we’re taking a contaminated, ugly facility and turning it into a pleasant place to shop. We’re turning an ugly duckling into a swan.”

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