Groceries are the most competitive area of retailing, and nowhere is that more apparent than in Bexar County, where H-E-B and Walmart are engaged in an intense game of real estate one-upmanship. Last year, H-E-B remodeled its 97,000-square-foot store in Universal City, only to have Walmart snap up a thirteen-acre site right next door, where it plans to open a 182,000-square-foot Supercenter this summer. Twenty-five miles away, in Spring Branch, Walmart just finished building another Supercenter, catty-corner from an H-E-B Plus. It even bought an old H-E-B store on San Antonio’s northeast side and converted it to its small-scale Neighborhood Market format. In total, Walmart added a dozen stores in San Antonio during 2014 and 2015 and six more so far this year. Not to be outdone, H-E-B opened or remodeled 12 San Antonio stores, capping things off with a 182,000-square-foot megastore near SeaWorld.
Walmart’s land grab is part of a major push by the global retailing juggernaut into the home turf of Alamo City stalwart H-E-B, a 110-year-old family business that has become a Texas powerhouse over the past 40 years. H-E-B has made it clear that it won’t be intimidated: between 2009 and 2014, Walmart snapped up 250 acres of property for about $123 million, and H-E-B matched that land grab acre for acre, according to an analysis of Bexar County land records by the San Antonio Express-News. While it’s too soon for H-E-B to declare victory, Walmart remains a distant second; last year, H-E-B controlled 48 percent of the San Antonio market, compared with Walmart’s anemic 28 percent. It’s unusual for Walmart to be trailing in a market it set out to dominate. “Walmart has learned that it can’t win every time,” says David Livingston, a supermarket analyst and principal of the consulting firm DJL Research. “H-E-B pretty much owns the market.”
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