Sam’s Club planned for 104-acre San Jacinto Marketplace development in Baytown
March 24, 2025
It appears the future San Jacinto Marketplace in Baytown has landed its first major tenant.
Sam’s Club has registered plans to develop a new store at 6611 Garth Road for an estimated $22.1 million with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
Construction is set to start in November and be completed in July 2026, according to the filing. TDLR filings are preliminary and often subject to change.
Another TDLR filing at the 6611 Garth Road address is for a Sam's Club fuel station with the same project timeline.
TDLR filings are preliminary and subject to change.
Sam’s Club did not directly respond to emailed questions about the project, only saying, “As part of our long-term growth strategy, Sam's Club is always looking for opportunities to serve new and existing members in more locations.”
A media representative for Bellaire-based Fidelis Realty Partners, the developer of San Jacinto Marketplace, said it is not commenting on anything regarding the project at this time, and Baytown Economic Development Manager Brian Moran said he would refer to Fidelis for any updates.
This would be the first Sam’s Club in Baytown and the 18th in Greater Houston, according to a store directory on the Walmart affiliate’s website.
Sam’s Club stores generally range between 94,000 and 168,000 square feet, with an average size of about 134,000 square feet, according to the latest 10-K report Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Fidelis is developing San Jacinto Marketplace on the 103.8-acre site of the former San Jacinto Mall at Interstate 10 and Garth Road.
The developer finished the demolition of the old mall in 2022 and broke ground on sitework for the new mixed-use development last October.
The plans as presented at the time include a 550,000-square-foot shopping center with open green space, 10 anchor tenants making up 75% of all retail space, restaurants, multitenant buildings and pad sites; one or two three-story apartment complexes; a hotel; and office buildings; along with about 2,500 surface parking spaces.
In August 2022, Fidelis signed a Chapter 380 agreement with the city of Baytown, granting the developer sales tax rebates up to $16.2 million. It replaced an earlier development agreement from 2015.
Fidelis CEO Alan Hassenflu told the Houston Business Journal in early October that the company was in lease negotiations with the 10 anchor tenants but did not disclose who they were. In an Oct. 15 meeting of the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission, Fidelis’ Ann Cleator told commissioners that leases have been signed for all anchor tenants, according to the meeting minutes.
Hassenflu also told the HBJ in October that he expected Phase 1, including all the retail and restaurants, to be completed by December 2026. The details for the second phase, which includes multifamily, hotel and office, were still being figured out, he said then, but the apartments could be built concurrently or a year later.
At the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, Cleator said the entire development would be built at the same time.
The hotel would be built by a third-party hotel developer, Hassenflu previously told the HBJ.
The 1.6 million-square-foot San Jacinto Mall, which opened in 1981, had been in decline for a while when Fidelis decided to acquire and redevelop it into an open-air shopping center.
The company assembled the entire mall property from seven different owners over seven years, starting with the initial 40 acres consisting of the multitenant indoor area, without the anchors, from California-based investment firm Triyar in 2015. That was followed by acquisitions of the anchor spaces for Mervyn’s, Service Merchants, Marshalls, Sears, JCPenney and Macy’s between 2016 and 2022 — in some cases helped by bankruptcies and store closings, Hassenflu previously told the HBJ.
Baytown has no other malls, whether indoor or outdoor, and Moran said he is excited about the future mixed-use development.
“I think it's going to be able to provide an elevated shopping and retail experience for our residents,” he said. “And this is something that our residents have … advocated for.”