H-E-B owns tons of vacant land. Here’s how it decides where to build stores.

H-E-B hasn’t said what it intends to do with dozens of plots of land it owns in DFW, including one that has sat vacant in south Fort Worth since 2014.

The Texan grocery giant has opened Joe V’s Smart Shops, a smaller and more budget-friendly concept that H-E-B has begun opening in North Texas, on smaller plots. Other pieces of land could remain vacant for the foreseeable future. The company has said it regularly buys land to add to its real estate portfolio even without having plans to builds stores on it.

H-E-B often decided which pieces of land to build on based on the demographics of the neighborhoods around the property. One plot, which sits on the corner of Altamesa Boulevard and McCart Avenue, has been vacant since it was purchased in 2014. The neighborhood that land belongs to is similar to where H-E-B has built Joe V’s in Irving and Dallas, city data shows.

Another way H-E-B decides which land to build on is size. Smaller lots are often reserved for Joe V’s buildings, like in Irving and Dallas. Larger plots go to flagship H-E-B stores.

There is currently one Joe V’s in Irving, and two in Dallas. Each store sits on land that is sized to hold buildings around 60,000 square feet, records show. All flagship H-E-B locations in DFW are twice as big.

The Irving Joe V’s is 58,000 square feet, while the two Dallas locations are 53,000 and 57,000 square feet. Tarrant County’s two H-E-B locations are 117,000 and 128,000 square feet.

Demographics of neighborhoods with Joe V’s

Espanita, the neighborhood in Irving where the Joe V’s Smart Shop opened in November, has a 51.9% Hispanic population, based on city data. The median household income is just over $70,000.

Joe V’s two Dallas locations have similar demographics. The first, in Woodland Hills in Duncanville, has a median household income of $71,000 and a Hispanic population of almost 45%. The second, in Buckner Terrace in East Dallas, also has a median household income of around $70,000 and a Hispanic-population of over 40%.

H-E-B also owns land on Altamesa and McCart in Fort Worth with demographics that are just about the same. In the Wedgwood East neighborhood, where the land is located, median household income is just shy of $70,000 and has a Hispanic population of almost 40%, according to data. There are no plans for that land, but it does match up with other properties the company has eventually built on.

H-E-B’s buying spree

H-E-B regularly buys land to add to its real estate portfolio, and each piece of acquired land does not necessarily signal a store is coming. On Tuesday, an H-E-B spokesperson declined to comment to the Star-Telegram’s request about the company’s plans to build on land owned in Fort Worth.

But if a store does some day come to the plot of land at Altamesa and McCart, it is much more likely to be a Joe V’s rather than an H-E-B store, based off the company’s previous land purchases and size of buildings the company currently owns. If one does eventually open, it would be the first Joe V’s in Fort Worth.

Some properties owned by H-E-B have sat vacant for years without any announced plans to build stores. For example, H-E-B bought 15 acres by The Shops at Chisholm Trail Ranch in far south Fort Worth in March 2023, along McPherson Boulevard and Summer Creek Drive. The site remains vacant.

H-E-B’s other purchases in Tarrant County

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 in the county by the end of 2016.

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 just opened in October. The first H-E-B location didn’t open in Fort Worth until 2024 in Alliance on Heritage Trace Parkway, also directly across from a Kroger Marketplace.

H-E-B’s future stores in Tarrant County

H-E-B first broke ground on the Alliance store in 2022. The company then broke ground on its second location, located in Mansfield, the following year. It opened in 2024.

Then, H-E-B announced plans for its second Fort Worth grocery store last summer. The location is in the growing 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. Last year, H-E-B also announced it would build its first store in Dallas.

This story was originally published January 28, 2026 at 3:56 PM.

Samuel O’Neal

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

302-448-6158

Samuel O’Neal is the K-12 Education Reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, covering public schools and policy that impacts them. He previously worked as a staff writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer and is a graduate of Temple University.