Walmart joins H-E-B in building out Texas boomtowns with first new Supercenter in years
After several years without building any new stores from the ground up, Walmart is ending its construction drought by first chasing after rising rooftops in the Sun Belt — especially in cities that have also recently seen new stores from popular Texas grocer H-E-B.
On April 30, the big-box giant opened a new store in Cypress, Texas, an unincorporated area near Houston. It’s the first of Walmart’s “store of the future” locations with a new store layout and design, as well as features including a full-service fuel station, expanded vision center and QR codes throughout the store that unlock digital tools and resources.
Walmart has a few different store formats in the U.S., the largest being Supercenters and Neighborhood Markets, which are more like typical grocery stores. It also operates discount stores, Sam’s Club, and small-format stores including fuel stations and C-stores. From 2021 to 2024, Walmart did not open any new Supercenters or Neighborhood Markets and instead focused on remodeling or expanding existing stores.
Cypress was Walmart’s first new Supercenter since fall 2021, when it opened locations in Yaphank, New York and Miami. Walmart’s new Neighborhood Market in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida in May 2024 was the first store of that format since the company opened one in Miami in 2020.
“In the time between those openings, the company has concentrated on several customer-focused initiatives, including remodeling more than 2,800 of its existing stores, expanding its supply chain capabilities and enhancing digital services like online pickup and delivery,” Charles Crowson, senior director of global communications for Walmart corporate affairs, said in a statement provided to Modern Retail.
In April, Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner told investors it plans to add a dozen more stores this year and is averaging about 650 remodels annually, according to Retail Dive. Walmart has also said it will open newly built Supercenters in Dallas suburbs Frisco, Melissa and Celina, as well as in Eagle Mountain, Utah and Eastvale, California, in 2025 and 2026, according to news releases and media reports.
Cypress and surrounding areas grew from about 398,000 residents in 2015 to more than 454,000 in 2020, according to a Community Impact analysis of U.S. Census data. The area also recently scored a new-construction H-E-B grocery store which opened there last October. The new, 128,000-square-foot H-E-B sports a True Texas BBQ restaurant with a drive-thru that serves slow-smoked meats and draft beer.
Collin County, the county north of Dallas where several of the new Walmart stores are being built, ranked among the fastest-growing counties in the nation from 2023-2024, according to new U.S. Census Bureau data released in May. Celina was the fourth fastest-growing city in the nation by population during that same period.
With the upcoming store openings in northern Dallas suburbs, Walmart appears to be working to keep up with H-E-B — which has opened a dozen stores to establish a foothold in the region, many just within the last few years — as well as other dominant grocers Albertsons, Tom Thumb and Kroger that all have also been building new stores nearby.
The amount of new homes being built in the area “have really been the impetus for the fast proliferation of retail and grocers,” A. David Zoller, evp of retail brokerage at Dallas-based retail real estate firm Weitzman, told Modern Retail, adding that Walmart remains the low-cost leader in the metro area. “When [Walmart] can find a location in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex where they’re not cannibalizing the sales of their other neighborhood grocery stores or other Supercenters, they’re certainly going to build those stores, because there are a lot of people moving here every day.”
Bill Read, evp of Birmingham-based real estate firm Retail Specialists, said he doesn’t expect the stores to have a big impact on smaller businesses in these communities as these cities have already been facing a development boom for years.
Read does, however, expect Walmart to be a catalyst for additional retail development surrounding the stores, similar to the phenomenon some towns have experienced when they landed their first Target.
“Walmart’s a mega anchor. They’re going to become the bullseye for the market, for the retail trade area, and people want to be around that,” Read said. “I expect that to create new QSRs and new retail opportunities in maybe a market that wasn’t growing as much until Walmart expanded it.”