H-E-B got the OK Wednesday night from San Antonio's Historic and Design Review Commission to proceed with plans to open a 12,000-square-foot grocery store and gas station on South Flores Street and East Cesar Chavez Boulevard.
The downtown property will be H-E-B's smallest grocery store and about one-sixth the size of an average H-E-B grocery store. A typical H-E-B store is 70,000 to 80,000 square feet.
William Triplett, senior vice president of strategic design at H-E-B, said in earlier conceptual drawings, H-E-B considered an even smaller downtown store — 6,000 square feet — but opted to go bigger.
"Everyone always likes a bigger store because it allows us to increase our variety and offerings," Triplett said. "We tried to make (the downtown location) as big as we could with the land available after a reasonable amount of parking, space for truck docks and the gas station."
Triplett said now, H-E-B's biggest challenge is figuring out how to operate such a small store, especially in terms of delivery methods and stock.
That is why Triplett and his team are heading north to Canada to meet with executives from Sobeys, the second-largest food retailer in Canada that operates large- and small-format grocery stores.
"We like reaching out to other retailers that are willing to share information," Triplett said.
Sobeys' larger stores are about 30,000 square feet, but the company also has tiny stores at 4,500 square feet in populous cities such as Toronto. Sobeys' smaller stores, marketed as Sobey's Urban Fresh, first opened in 2003. The small stores target working professionals who don't have time to cook but want to buy ready-made meals and fresh produce.
It's unclear whether H-E-B's downtown store will have a similar focus on ready-made meals or what types of departments the company will be able to fit in a smaller format.
Should the approval process go smoothly, construction on the new store is expected to begin in early summer and be completed by fall 2015.