H-E-B Buys Land for Store in Future Boomtown Sherman

H-E-B is pushing deeper into Dallas-Fort Worth’s northern fringe, snapping up nearly 20 acres in Sherman amid a broader North Texas expansion.

The San Antonio-based chain bought the land at the northwest corner of FM 1417 and U.S. Route 75 in June, according to Grayson County records and verified by H-E-B, the Dallas Morning News reported. The site sits within Sherman Crossroads, a 130-acre master-planned development by Harkinson Development and Heritage Development Partners.

A construction date hasn’t been set.

H-E-B’s Sherman play follows a string of recent acquisitions and openings across the Metroplex since the start of the year, including a store in Melissa that opened earlier this year and land buys in Flower Mound and Fort Worth’s Walsh Ranch development. The grocer has opened stores in Frisco, Plano and McKinney over the past few years as part of a multibillion-dollar effort to chip away at market dominance by Walmart and Kroger.

H-E-B subsidiary Central Market is advancing a plan for a flagship store in Uptown.

Sherman, about 70 miles north of Dallas, has long been more farmland than boomtown, but that’s changing fast.

Texas Instruments started construction on a $30 billion semiconductor fabrication plant expected to bring thousands of jobs to the area, many of them high-paying roles. Dallas-Fort Worth leads the nation in STEM wage growth over the past five years, rising 32.7 percent — more than Silicon Valley or Austin, according to CoworkingCafe.

That rising tide of engineers, researchers and software workers has helped fuel residential and retail development across the northern reaches of DFW. Jeff Harkinson, general partner of Sherman Crossroads Limited, called H-E-B’s purchase “another milestone for Sherman” and a vote of confidence in the site’s status as a future retail destination.

The Sherman store follows H-E-B’s familiar pattern: buy early, wait for rooftops and build big.

— Judah Duke