Walmart building stores in Frisco, Melissa, Celina to capitalize on Texas population boom

Walmart has its eyes on the new residential growth in Texas, its largest state, as it plans to open 150 stores in the U.S. over the next five years.

Walmart told The Dallas Morning News Friday that it will begin building four new stores, one each in Celina, Frisco and Melissa in North Texas and one near Houston in Cypress.

Celina and Melissa are getting their first Walmart stores. Groundbreakings for all four stores will be this spring and summer. These are Walmart’s first new local stores since 2018 when it opened in Frisco, Prosper and Fort Worth.

The Frisco site is across FM 423 (Gee Road) from H-E-B’s second store under construction in Frisco, which is scheduled to open later this year. Grocers are good at finding the best intersections as they follow new rooftops. As they build new stores in the market the locations are often across or down the street from a competitor.

Walmart and many retailers had paused expansion even before the pandemic to focus on building e-commerce and now at least in Dallas-Fort Worth grocers and other retailers have resumed opening new stores. Kroger, Tom Thumb, Albertsons, and Sprouts Farmers Market have opened new stores or plan to in this year and next.

The new store locations are:

• Celina on the northwest quadrant of Preston Road and Collin County Outer Loop
• Melissa on the southwest corner of McKinney Street and Legacy Ranch Drive
• Frisco at 16600 FM 423. This will be the fifth Walmart Supercenter in Frisco.
• Cypress at 8927 Fry Road. It will be the second Walmart in Cypress, which also has a Walmart Neighborhood Market.

Construction on the new Frisco store will begin with a groundbreaking tentatively scheduled for June 11, said Walmart spokesman Charles Crowson. “Our motivation for these new stores goes back to what we said in January.”

In January, Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner said the company would resume construction of new stores while continuing to remodel stores. Walmart remodeled more than 200 stores in Texas in the last two years including more than 75 in North Texas. More remodels are planned, the company said.

Walmart’s store remodels have added features of its newest store concept, which has an improved layout and signage, technology upgrades and expanded products and selections with more visual displays of mannequins and home vignettes. The new concept has expanded health and wellness aisles and a larger pharmacy and vision center.

The Celina store will anchor the new Shawnee Trail Development by G-Man Development. It’s a mixed-use development that will include other retail, restaurants and urban residential.

Walmart has already been working with the city officials in Melissa on zoning approvals and has told the city that store will have a micro-fulfillment center for online orders.

The retailer built its next-generation supply chain in D-FW where it has 156 Walmart and Sam’s Club stores. Walmart has reinvented how it stocks stores and ships online orders and D-FW is the first market where all the capabilities of its newly transforming supply chain are in one geographic location.

X: @MariaHalkias

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