In last week’s post about grocery stores, someone asked why Costco doesn’t want to build a store in Lake Highlands. The question comes up periodically, particularly with all that empty land at the Town Center.
Don’t worry if you’re confused about it. Dallas officials are confused, too. One of the selling points during the wet-dry election a couple of years ago was that Costco would jump at building a store in the newly wet portions of Dallas, if only voters would approve wine and beer sales.
Which didn’t happen, of course. Costco doesn’t like to build urban stores; its preference is to find an empty cotton field near a lot of highways and put something up there. That’s what it did in Frisco, and that’s what it’s doing in far north Fort Worth, where it bought 17 acres to build its fourth Tarrant County store.
By comparison, the entire Town Center project is just 70 acres, which includes a 20-acre park, 5 acres of retail, an acre of office space and 1,200 homes. Ignoring the aesthetics (who wants to live next to a Costco parking lot?), squeezing in a Costco would be difficult at best, even if the company was interested.
Market Street, also mentioned in the comments, feels much the same way about urban stores.
