Houston’s Third Loop: The Grand Parkway Still Attracting New Business A Year After Opening

SPRING, TX -- It’s been nearly a year since segments of the Grand Parkway, connecting U.S. 290 in Cypress to Interstate 69 north of Kingwood, opened to traffic and streamlined commuter traffic for major segments of the Greater Houston area.

While commuting has become easier, developers have seen dollar signs with a number of them breaking ground on new retailer areas earlier this year.

In Spring, work has been steady on the Grand Parkway Marketplace I, located at the Grand Parkway and Spring Stuebner, which will open in March.

The 488,000-square-feet Grand Parkway Marketplace I is 80 percent leased and will include anchor stores such as Target, Michael’s, Petsmart, Burlington Coat Factory, Ross, DSW, TJ Maxx, Party City and Ulta Cosmetics.

Other retailers signed on for the new shopping center include Bath & Body Works, Chipotle, AT&T, Salata, Great American Cookie and Marble Slab Creamery, 5 Guys, Vitamin Shoppe, Potbelly, T-Mobile, Nails of America, Famous Footwear, OshKosh B'Gosh, Five Below, Orangetheory Fitness and Blaze Pizza.

Across the street, Grand Parkway Marketplace II is also under construction and will include Hobby Lobby and Academy Sports as anchor stores, with a target opening of late summer 2017.

The 275,000-square-foot Grand Parkway Marketplace II will likely include a host of fast food eateries and will add as demand in the area grows.

Both locations are being developed by Kimco Realty, who saw the demand even before the Grand Parkway was opened.

"The demand has been terrific," Kimco’s Rob Nadler told the Houston Chronicle. "I think the retailers all identified it as a market that they weren't adequately serving today given the existing population there and the anticipated growth, all coupled with the new Grand Parkway going through and Exxon's campus being fully occupied now."

A little farther west, where the Grand Parkway meetings Texas 249, just south of Tomball, developers with NewQuest Development have been working slowly to incorporate water and sewer lines for the Grand Parkway Town Center.

The 153 acre site plan that was presented to the Tomball City Council in 2015, included sites or a Kroger Marketplace as one of the anchor stores, but representatives have said repeatedly that nothing is final as far as any lease being signed.

Sam’s Club, which was rumored for more than a year to be another major anchor store, will be one of the major new tenants, making it the first Sam’s Club in the Tomball area.

Regardless, representatives with NewQuest Development have expressed optimism in the project, despite the slower than anticipated pace of the project.
The Grand Parkway Town Center will include 187,010 square feet of retail space and 143,974 square feet of office building, and is about 75 percent committed, according to NewQuest’s Brad Elmore.

The company has proposed a number of tenants on their site plan that include Chick-fil-a, Cracker Barrel, Dick's Sporting Goods, and Whataburger.

In May 2015, the Tomball City Council approved a strategic partnership agreement to create the Grand Parkway Town Center, which allowed the city a limited purpose annexation of the site and allows the city to collect a 2 cent sales tax from business at the new shopping center.

Tomball City Manager George Shackelford said the city could see as much as $80 million in sales tax revenue from the Grand Parkway Town Center in the first full year of operation.

The Grand Parkway Town Center is projected to open December 2017.

Image:U.S. Army Corps of Engineers via Flickr