Canino’s planning to close in Heights farmers market

Shoppers browse through the produce at Canino Produce Inc., Farmers Outlet. Canino, which opened in the Heights-area market in 1958, is expected to shutter in late January. Shoppers browse through the produce at Canino Produce Inc., Farmers Outlet. Canino, which opened in the Heights-area market in 1958, is expected to shutter in late January. Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Canino’s planning to close in Heights farmers market 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

When Canino Produce Co. opened on Airline Drive in the late 1950s, farmers from in and around Houston would truck in bushels of freshly picked produce to sell to Canino’s, one of the oldest businesses in the Greater Heights-area farmers market.

Today most of those farms are gone, and after some 60 years, the owners of Canino’s are, too, ready to call it a day. The open-air store is expected to close on Jan. 21.

“Sales are down and our overhead is staying the same,” said co-owner Bill Canino, 70. “It’s not worth fighting it anymore.”

Canino’s departure is part of broader changes at the farmers market, following the acquisition of the nearly 18-acre property in May by MLB Capital Partners. The Houston developer plans to transform the market into a high-end retail destination with local fishmongers, dairy makers and bakers operating in air-conditioned buildings alongside an open-air produce pavilion. The group’s plans include adding as much as 60,000 square feet of new space.

Today the market is a jumble of aging structures, warehouses and stalls. Canino’s operates in an old wooden building that would need to be demolished before the developer begins to build around it.

Canino’s leases about 10,000 square feet of space among some 80 retail and wholesale produce purveyors. Bill Canino, who started working at his family’s store at the age of 10, had thought about shuttering the family-run business for the past few years. He said he’s not closing because of the developer’s plans.

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“Everything they have planned is for the greater good — to turn it back into a highlight of the Heights it used to be,” he said. “It’s just time for us to go, and there’s just nobody to turn it over to.”

MLB Capital Partners has hired a slate of architects, engineers and consultants to reimagine the market as a place where Houstonians would go for wine tastings and chef demonstrations. They said they wanted it to become a better place to visit, while maintaining its quirky, neighborhood culture.

“The goal is not to homogenize it, but make it flow a little better and have a diversity of offerings,” landscape architect Sheila Condon, one of the consultants, said at the time.

The developer had hoped to start on the improvements last spring, but delays in the city’s permitting office because of the burst of rebuilding after Hurricane Harvey slowed things down.

“We’ve been back and forth with the planning department,” said Todd Mason, MLB managing partner. “It’s a fairly normal review process, but unfortunately because of all the Harvey applications, it has taken a lot longer than it needed to.”

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Mason said he always hoped Canino’s would stay or the owners would sell the business to another operator.

Canino’s brother-in-law, Lawrence Pilkinton, expressed frustration this week over the plans to remake the property. He said the new owners wanted Canino’s to move into a tent in the parking lot while they constructed a new building. And while Canino’s rent hasn’t gone up, Pilkinton imagines it would have.

The economics of the business were already strained.

The farmers market started in 1942 as a co-op of local farmers. It incorporated in the late 1980s, and its shareholders were the original farmers or their descendants.

Most of the local and regional farms that used to sell there are no longer around. Over time, the market became a place where produce was shipped and trucked in from places such as Mexico, as it is to grocery stores.

The property, however, has skyrocketed in value. It was appraised at $11.8 at the beginning of 2018 by Harris County, up 66 percent from 2014, when the value was $7.1 million.

Mason said the market and warehouse space is 100 percent leased. His company has increased rent for some of the warehouse space, but not for retail operations.

Other retailers have expressed interest in taking Canino’s space. Mason said it may be re-leased in the short term, but nothing is certain.

Canino’s fronts Airline Drive, so many people assume it takes up the entire market. But the store only occupies about 5 percent of the property.

“They just have the front door that everyone sees,” Mason said. “The farmers market is not closing.”

nancy.sarnoff@chron.com

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