It's difficult not to let out a sigh passing the old building that formerly housed the old downtown H.E.B.
Yes, we've heard the plans for a "first floor grocery" in the Samano Building Restoration Project, but that will most likely be a smaller, pricier outlet than the old H.E.B.
Companies that can only think with their bottom line are heartless, visionless entities.
We repost our story from 2019 below:
Yesterday was the last day for H.E.B. in historic downtown Brownsville.
Closing the store was a heartless, visionless move by corporate execs with no imagination, no facility to think outsider the box of dollars per square foot, no understanding or grasp of the goodwill that could have been generated keeping a vital cog of downtown going while restoration continued.
Make no mistake. Most downtown businesses envied the volume of business generated by that little downtown grocery, where most days a parking spot was almost impossible to find, even though much of the business was pedestrian traffic "from across" with small orders quickly cashiered and out the door and back across the bridge.
Yes, the store was unconventional with no backroom, deliveries unloaded outside, only to be whisked inside to refrigeration and shelf space.
With a little imagination H.E.B. could have stayed, even added a second story as some landlocked downtown stores have done in quaint areas with shopping carts going up and down an escalator.
True, the downtown store didn't have every item H.E.B. Plus has, but it had enough, even while maintaining competitive pricing.
Another store, without H.E.B.'s warehousing, will not be able to offer the same pricing and familiarity. A&V Lopez might come close, but certainly not its dingier competitor with the same family name.
It's a lost opportunity for a hugely profitable corporation that could have been a good neighbor but preferred greed to nostalgia, bottom line to historicity.
Below are some pics from downtown H.E.B.'s last day:
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