(HOUSTON BUSINESS JOURNAL) - Last November, Minneapolis-based Target Corp. unveiled its first-ever newly designed store in Richmond in Fort Bend County.
By the end of this spring, greater Houston will have a few more of the retailer's next-generation stores.
The Humble Target, at 20777 Highway 59 North, reopened with the modern look on Feb. 25, said Liz Hancock, a spokeswoman for the company. It had closed in September after Hurricane Harvey ripped through the area.
Target's renovated stores are based on the prototype built in Richmond, she said. That store has two distinct entrances, curbside space for grocery pickup, windows and other features.
The 150,000-square-foot Humble store is very similar to the one in Richmond. It was slated for a remodel before the flooding from Hurricane Harvey, Hancock said.
"The newly reopened store was fully renovated to feature elements of our next generation of store design, such as enhanced merchandise presentations, new lighting fixtures and an updated food and beverage area," she said.
For the stores selected for remodeling, Target is customizing the upgraded features to the needs of its guests, Hancock said, so not every store will have all the next-generation elements. The average investment cost for the changes ranges between $5 million and $10 million per store.
So far, two other Houston-area Target stores have also been remodeled with the new designs — the store in Sugar Land at 16300 Southwest Freeway and the store in Pasadena at 5757 Fairmont Parkway — she said.
Although Hancock was unable to provide a list of the upcoming locations that will receive the new designs in 2018, she did say that construction on the Target in Conroe at 503 Interstate 45 is already underway. The renovations are expected to finish in the spring.
In total, the retailer plans to "reimagine" more than 1,000 stores nationwide by the end of 2020. Target remodeled 110 stores in 2017, Hancock said, and plans to fully renovate more than 300 stores in 2018.
At the company's latest financial meeting, Target announced it would begin offering free two-day delivery for more items, expand its drive-up pickup service to 1,000 stores by the end of the year and boost starting hourly wages for employees to $12 this spring — it has committed to increase the wages to $15 by 2020.
In February, Target and Alabama-based online marketplace Shipt Inc. launched a same-day delivery option for Houston-area stores. The retailer announced in December that it had agreed to acquired Shipt in a deal worth $550 million. Through the deal, Target was expected to be able to offer same-day delivery to half of its stores by early 2018.
