Trader Joe's gets permit for Stone Oak

(Neal Morton) (Neal Morton) Photo: & Photo: & Image 1 of / 89 Caption Close Trader Joe's gets permit for Stone Oak 1 / 89 Back to Gallery

It looks like Trader Joe's might join a popular grocery destination on the North Side in Stone Oak.

Since the success of the specialty grocer's first San Antonio store in the Quarry Village, the state comptroller's office last week issued a sales tax permit for the Monrovia, Calif.-based company to operate at 403 N. Loop 1604 W. between Blanco Road and Stone Oak Parkway.

The comptroller's office listed Dec. 1 as the store's first day of sales.

The North Side location is not listed on the company's website of future stores, but an employee who answered the phone at the 305 E. Basse Road store said a new Trader Joe's should open near Stone Oak “sometime next year.”

“At this time, we don't have anything to confirm,” a spokeswoman said in an email.

Since opening its first Texas stores in Fort Worth and The Woodlands near Houston last year, Trader Joe's has rapidly expanded its footprint across the state. Currently, it has seven stores and plans to open its first Austin-area location this weekend. According to its website, it will build three more stores in Texas by next year.

In November, Trader Joe's greeted long lines of customers eager to shop at its first Alamo City store, and the grocer's parking lot rarely appears less than full nearly a year later.

Before the Quarry Village location opened, David Nicolson, president of the local Weitzman Group real estate firm, recalled the company hinting that it would look to the North Side for future expansion.

“There are a lot of places in San Antonio that would make good sense for them, but this is what they said they were prioritizing for their second (location) here,” Nicolson said.

He said Trader Joe's made a smart choice to locate near the Blanco Road and Loop 1604 intersection, where Whole Foods, Target and locally based H-E-B already offer grocery options.

“They all want to be your grocer,” Nicolson said. “In other parts of the country that are served by the big and specialty grocery stores, the shoppers will find a reason to go to all three stores. They'll have their preferred products at each one.”

Trader Joe's expansion in the state reflects similar growth here among other California-based retailers, including fast-food chains Del Taco and In-N-Out.

Headquartered in Lake Forest, Calif., Del Taco recently announced it would open 25 restaurants in San Antonio as part of an aggressive plan to launch up to 80 locations in the Lone Star State.

Similarly, popular hamburger joint In-N-Out has been scouting out a site for its first restaurant in New Braunfels, and a representative said the Irvine, Calif.-based company is “very enthusiastic” about opportunities in San Antonio.

“That said, we are in the very early stages of development in both cities,” Carl Van Fleet, vice president of planning and development for In-N-Out, said in an email. “We are currently working on a site in New Braunfels, but nothing is close to finalized there yet so it would be premature to comment on the status or timing of that project.

“As far as San Antonio is concerned, we are looking at a few opportunities there as well but nothing that we can comment on yet,” he added. “It is just too early.”

More retailers, especially from California, might consider Texas a key growth market because of the relatively strong economy compared with the rest of the country.

Additionally, newcomers moving to Texas have provided the state with about $17.6 billion in adjusted gross income, according to a recent analysis of federal tax returns by the Tax Foundation. At nearly $4.5 billion, more than a quarter of the state's net gain came from residents moving to Texas from California, the Tax Foundation found.

That could help persuade more retailers to open new locations here, said Cheryl Bridges, director of the Center for Retailing Studies at Texas A&M University.

“Our economy has been much stronger than (most of) the rest of the country, not only in job growth but an influx of people moving to Texas,” she said. “When (retailers) do site visits, they're going to look at everything from economic development to the number of people moving into the area.

“All of those things definitely go into that decision-making process,” Bridges said.