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NEW YORK — H-E-B and Publix Super Markets Inc. are expanding their real estate holdings in their home states.
H-E-B and Publix Super Markets Inc. are expanding their real estate holdings in their home states.
San Antonio-based H-E-B has been accumulating acreage in north Texas, while Lakeland, Fla.-based Publix has been buying shopping centers in southwest Florida.
In the Lone Star State, H-E-B has purchased sites in Allen, Carrollton, Corinth, Dallas, DeSoto, Fort Worth, Frisco, Grand Prairie, McKinney, Murphy and Plano. The company has denied having any immediate plans for more stores in north Texas — where it currently has a half-dozen — but many industry observers foresee it opening more supermarkets in the Dallas-Fort Worth market next year.
"We continue to include DFW in our statewide real estate search for future property holdings for the company," H-E-B vice president Winell Herron told The Dallas Morning News. Advance real estate purchases are a key to the chain’s ability to offer low prices, she said.
In southwest Florida, Publix has acquired six shopping centers in the past year for $86 million. The company has become a major commercial real estate player, betting on the region’s comeback from travails dating to the housing crisis.
The supermarketer paid $17.45 million in February for the shopping center it anchors in Lakewood Ranch, in Manatee County. It was Publix’s second big deal in the booming area. In November it spent $26.3 million for the Lakewood Walk shopping center in Bradenton.
Starting in the late winter of 2014, the grocer also picked up centers where it operates stores in Sarasota, Parrish, Englewood and Port Charlotte.
The deals are seen as a means of defending the company against competitors, as well as cutting occupancy costs over the long term, and providing rental revenue.
"We’re very fortunate to be in good financial health — no long-term debt and significant cash reserves, enough to allow us to invest in real estate when the situation makes sense," a Publix spokesman told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
