Supermarket chain H-E-B won a rezoning vote to build its first namesake grocery store in the city of Dallas.
The Dallas City Council voted on Wednesday in favor of new zoning for the site at the southeast corner of I-635 and Hillcrest Road, the Dallas Business Journal reported. H-E-B prevailed, despite opposition from nearby residents who voiced concerns about traffic and changes to the neighborhood in North Dallas.
The San Antonio-based company seeks to develop a 127,000-square-foot store on the property, currently home to some partially occupied, yet old office buildings. H-E-B purchased the roughly 10-acre parcel earlier this year. It sits just inside the Loop freeway and across the street from the Dallas County Tax Office.
“This is the first step in a long process, and we hope to share more details with our neighbors soon,” Mabrie Jackson, H-E-B’s managing director of public affairs, said in a statement after the vote. “We appreciate the thoughtful consideration from city officials, staff and community members throughout this process.”
The company already operates a few of its Joey V’s, a lower-priced format, inside Dallas’ city limits. It also has three of its higher-end Central Market in Dallas, plus stores in nearby Frisco, Allen, Plano, Southlake, McKinney and Fort Worth.
H-E-B is a privately owned company led by CEO Howard Butt III and his uncle, Chairman Charles Butt, Forbes shows. It generated $46.5 billion in revenue last year, according to the Business Journal. The chain operates more than 440 stores in Texas and Mexico and has expanded aggressively in the Dallas-Fort Worth regional market, with new stores under construction in Forney, Murphy and Bedford/Euless, according to the Business Journal.
Over the summer, it bought nearly 20 acres in Sherman, where Texas Instruments plans to build a chip facility. It later purchased 95 acres in Pilot Point on the far outskirts of the Dallas metro market.
— Joel Russell
