Why H-E-B buys dozens of land plots with no plans to build stores
CORRECTION: H-E-B has owned the parcel at Altamesa Boulevard and McCart Avenue since 2014. The purchase date was incorrect in an earlier version of this story.
H-E-B has rapidly grown its North Texas real estate portfolio with the purchase of more land in Fort Worth in recent years, records show.
The San Antonio-based supermarket giant, which also operates gourmet Central Markets and budget-friendly Joe V’s Smart Shops, already owns numerous properties, some of which have sat vacant for years without any announced plans to build stores. For example, in March 2023, H-E-B bought 15 acres by The Shops at Chisholm Trail Ranch in far south Fort Worth, along McPherson Boulevard and Summer Creek Drive. The site remains vacant.
Tarrant County property records show that H-E-B acquired a 4.5-acre site at the southeastern corner of Altamesa Boulevard and McCart Avenue in 2014. It has not announced any plans to build on the land. The property is an abandoned Sack ’N Save warehouse grocery store.
H-E-B bought its first plot of land in Tarrant County in 2015 in the northwest corner of Cheek-Sparger Road and Rio Grande Boulevard in Euless. That purchase then sparked a buying spree, and the company owned six other plots n the county by the end of 2016.
H-E-B’s plans for new Fort Worth property
A spokesperson for H-E-B declined to comment this week on whether the company plans to build a grocery story on any of the land it owns in Fort Worth or what a timeline could look like in terms of land being put to use. Most land owned in Fort Worth are next to competitors like Kroger and Albertson's.
H-E-B has also been rolling out its smaller Joe V’s Smart Shop concept in North Texas, after previously operating most of those stores in the Houston area. The Metroplex’s first Joe V’s opened at 4101 W. Wheatland Road in Dallas in June 2024. A second Joe V’s opened in March 2025 on Samuel Boulevard, also in Dallas. A third location opened in November in Irving.
The company’s 14 Joe V’s stores are smaller than a traditional H-E-B but offer many of the same products.
The vacant property at Altamesa and McCart is across from one of H-E-B’s chief rivals in North Texas: Kroger. The first H-E-B in Fort Worth opened in 2024 in Alliance in 2022 on Heritage Trace Parkway, directly across from a Kroger Marketplace.
And in far north Fort Worth, H-E-B owns 17 acres of pasture just south of the new Kroger Marketplace on Bonds Ranch Road that opened in October.
H-E-B’s future stores in Tarrant County
After H-E-B announced the Alliance store, the company broke ground on a location in Mansfield in early 2023 and opened it the following year.
Then, H-E-B announced plans for its second Fort Worth grocery store last July. The location is in the booming Walsh area along I-20 just across the Parker County line.
In January 2025, H-E-B also bought land in Wise County at the southeast corner of Farm Road and U.S. 287 in the growing Reunion development, where thousands of homes have either been built or planned.
A third location in Tarrant County is expected to open near the Bedford-Euless line later this year.
H-E-B’s vacant Altamesa Boulevard property
Forty years ago, the corner of Altamesa Boulevard and McCart Avenue was fiercely competitive in the grocery business. Kroger has operated here since around 1980.
According to the Star-Telegram archives, the building H-E-B purchased was originally a Safeway that held a grand opening on Jan. 17, 1982. In 1985, a Sack ’N Save opened on another corner of the intersection that was most recently a Big Lots.
At some point, Sack ’N Save moved into the former Safeway.
The 4.5 acres has a total tax value of $1,450,929, according to Tarrant County records.
Today, H-E-B operates more than 455 stores in Texas and Mexico with sales of more than $50 billion.
Last year, H-E-B announced it would build its first store in Dallas.
This story was originally published January 27, 2026 at 12:40 PM.
