Which is why I added the part about the usual caveats about underemployment. This is clearly an issue in looking at national employment stats, but it's hard for me to tell how our area compares in underemployment vs employment.

The back of the envelope population analysis in my post was to see if I could get a guesstimate of the underemployment. But I don't think I have the right inputs or know what the right outputs should be. And calculations for our area are always affected by how students are counted or not.

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The CEO of Sprouts said that he didn't like the area. He couldn't see Sprouts making it here. How he got that idea, I don't know.

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Good market research, like the folks at Central market did years ago when they decided this was an HEB but not a Central Market community. And it was a good call, too. The modal shopper in BCS is't looking for heirloom vegetables, organic meats, a wide variety of seafood, gourmet coffees, etc.

Probably one reason why the folks running Village Foods barely even tried to make the place look even remotely appealing or interesting.

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Central Market isn't here because H-E-B doesn't really build Central Markets in the region. For all the "Houston has X, why don't we have any" businesses, guess how many Central Markets in Houston there are? Just one, in a very nice part of town.

Village Foods is low-end because it's essentially just a facelift on an old grocery store. Remember, it was an AppleTree, and the main reason AppleTree collapsed in the early 1990s as a 100-store spin-off of the old Safeway division was largely due because they had no money and a collection of outdated stores (at the time, the Bryan store was one of the largest, most modern stores they had, if that tells you anything). I worked at Village Foods for a while, and while there were many people who would make the drive to buy foods that they couldn't elsewhere, a majority of the customers were retirees or lower-income people who took advantage of the store's "traditional" grocery options. And after around 6 pm, the store would be dead, while the H-E-B down the street would be booming. The people who wanted the even nicer stuff went to Houston, which is not uncommon...our little economy essentially subsidizes Houston's, like people who skip Post Oak Mall in favor of that outlet mall off 290, so it's not as big as a matter of "we can't afford it" (except Brazilian steakhouses. We definitely can't afford it)

The Kettle too is a relic. The website for the chain is down (permanently?) but from what I could determine from little they have left, I think I counted about a dozen (the 21 mentioned on Wikipedia is out of date) spread throughout four states. Two decades ago it was ten times that many. The Luby's also was a relic from another time (it opened in the early 1970s IIRC), and the traditional Luby's have been shutting down left and right in recent years (a few new Fuddruckers/Luby's combos have opened in the last few years, though).

I don't think HEB ever considered putting a Central Market here. Even the first HEB's were small Pantry Stores.

FWIW, The Woodlands doesn't even have a Central Market. It has a Whole Foods and a Trader Joes, and there is a Sprouts just south of The Woodlands at 2920 and Kuykendahl. But as a previous poster said, the only true Central Market is on Westheimer, near River Oaks and The Galleria.

Lol! I was going to edit my previous post, but I'll just add another. I'll give you even more facts...>50% of the households in The Woodlands earn $100k or more per year. And still no CM!

FWIW, I wasn't impressed with the Whole Foods. It's not even close to being on par with the one I've been to in Austin. I went once, didn't buy anything, and don't plan to go back.

Even the Trader Joe's is small, but they have some very good prices on specific items that I really like., so I do shop there every couple of months. Probably 99% of what we need is met by HEB.

Your sarcasm meter is broken.

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Lol! I was going to edit my previous post, but I'll just add another. I'll give you even more facts...>50% of the households in The Woodlands earn $100k or more per year. And still no CM!

FWIW, I wasn't impressed with the Whole Foods. It's not even close to being on par with the one I've been to in Austin. I went once, didn't buy anything, and don't plan to go back.

Even the Trader Joe's is small, but they have some very good prices on specific items that I really like., so I do shop there every couple of months. Probably 99% of what we need is met by HEB.

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I read somewhere, Wall St. Journal I think, that most of the Whole Foods around the country don't stack up to the flagship in Austin.

Also, they are worried about lower growth, especially as younger shoppers seek out more affordable grocery alternatives.

I don't think I even went to the flagship store in Houston. I was in the south side of town off of 71/290.

The one that just opened in The Woodlands seems to be very popular. But it's in an inconvenient location for me, and the new HEB that just opened within walking distance of my house is super nice and has specialty items (bakery, cheese, beer/wine) that are (IMO) comparable to Whole Foods.

I'm surprised about the Sprouts decision, if what a previous poster said is correct. There are several down here that are in areas not as affluent as The Woodlands. I've shopped at Sprouts...they have some specialty items that would probably be welcomed in B/CS, and the "vibe" of the store is more like Trader Joes than Whole Foods. It's certainly not high end, but it is earthy/granola.

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Your sarcasm meter is broken.

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Pray tell, what did you mean then without being sarcastic? That Sharp is in control and by excising A&M of non-cronies is good for us?

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I don't think I even went to the flagship store in Houston. I was in the south side of town off of 71/290.

The one that just opened in The Woodlands seems to be very popular. But it's in an inconvenient location for me, and the new HEB that just opened within walking distance of my house is super nice and has specialty items (bakery, cheese, beer/wine) that are (IMO) comparable to Whole Foods.

I'm surprised about the Sprouts decision, if what a previous poster said is correct. There are several down here that are in areas not as affluent as The Woodlands. I've shopped at Sprouts...they have some specialty items that would probably be welcomed in B/CS, and the "vibe" of the store is more like Trader Joes than Whole Foods. It's certainly not high end, but it is earthy/granola.

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IIRC, Sprouts was mentioned in the WSJ article referenced earlier as being particularly attractive to price conscious millennials. Last I looked we had at least 50,000 or so going to A&M. I'd say whoever pulled the plug on a Sprouts here made a bone-headed decision.

Having to drive out of town to shop where I wish is shameful. I like my "smaller" town living...DH hates it! He reminds me all the time that our needs can be met in a major metropolitan area. I'm not moving....so something had better start showing up.

Millennials and excuses go hand in hand. It's perfect.

Sprouts doesn't need to be here. They looked at the WFM research, and realized it would be a disaster. Organic grocery stores sell nothing proprietary, and even with lower prices, college students aren't buying organic tenderloin, Kale, or Swiss Chard. Companies with no proprietary products have to make it about the experience. HEB, Kroger, and even Wal-Mart carry certified organic now. WFM, Sprouts, and that entire segment doesn't make sense from a valuation perspective.

I don't know if it the recession or not, but we've have 4 rentals let go (not really because the company is still on the hook for the lease) because they were in O&G and were reassigned. Two had only been here for less than a year. All worked for big named companies.

The housing market it hot, but the O&G sector is not. College Station is a town where its (guessing) 50% under 25 and 35% over 55.

When looking at jobs, in CS you made roughly 2/3 what you made in Dallas or Houston (after adjusting for the difference in quality of life). CS is drunk on businesses pulling college students for entry level, low paying jobs.

Best advice I was given by someone in the sector in CS was to go to a big city, create a reputation, then move to CS. A happy client will follow you, but CS doesn't have the ability to drive a career like Houston or Dallas or Austin. It is a fishbowl.

Sometimes demographics and other research is spot on for our area. It was a good place to build a hotel the last few years for instance, and the numbers bore that out. But sometimes the market research gets skewed, IMO. Sometimes outsiders only look at CS' population and don't include Bryan's. Sometimes the students skew the data, especially when looking at income.

But I do think you're right in that the organic aisles at bigger grocery chains may cause heartburn for more specialized grocery stores as time goes by.

We typically did not include Bryan in any demo analysis we'd conduct for CS. Different cities, different populations, different buying habits, income levels, tastes, etc. It was mostly a focus on stripping out the students from full time residents. Also adjusting gross spending to adjust for seasonality of locals vs. mom and dad's credit card. The center of CS moving towards Houston is hurting Bryan. Bryan is the old money, but the problem is the old money owns so much, there isn't much room for the little guys to grow. 3-4 families probably control 50%+ of the real estate and economic activity. Obviously, that is a generalization, but compared to CS, it isn't.

O&G and medicine are where the big money is right now in BCS along with CRED and RRED. My concern is that the O&G sector was driving a lot more than most wanted to believe from a local standpoint. Halcon Resources is a good example. They were heavy heavy heavy in the area along with APA and others until last fall. Now they (Halcon) are on life support and have cut rigs and crews and a lot of local jobs. Hotels make sense because more people are visiting. The problem is they aren't staying. Hopefully the new toll road will open the area up to larger employers moving in to fill the wage gap.

Honest answer? We called it a fudge factor. It was basically a set % (very very low) of Bryan discounted to CS average spending and income per resident. The flow is really unidirectional. We saw very little movement regarding CS residents shopping in Bryan. From the Bryan perspective, a friend in Miramont said it quite poigniently: "it takes me 20 minutes to get to the new Scott and White. That is the same amount of time it took from the house to the medical center when we were in Houston" (S&W is where her husband works). Likewise, not many in Indian Lakes are going to Bryan for anything.

I can ask how the current model accounts for cross city spending. I haven't run a BCS demo in over 6 months, and the models change with every new significant addition.

Maybe it's unidirectional because there's not as much in Bryan? Fewer restaurants for instance. I still think ignoring 75-80000 people skews the results for some analyses.

I would say it does, but it depends on if the skew is significant enough to matter.

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I would say it does, but it depends on if the skew is significant enough to matter.

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As a Bryanite (or is it Bryanian?) I take offense to this.

Any thoughts on if the southward expansion of CS will ever rebound and start pushing north? Not the city limits of CS, but the economic input, especially from the "revolving door" crowd.

I agree that for someone who lives in Bryan, it is a slight annoyance that the center of CS seems to be getting further and further away.

Part of the reason why CS is going south (literally, though there's a great joke in there somewhere) is because it's closer to Houston. Indian Lakes does advertise as a Houston area bedroom community...

You can take offense to it. But, as you pointed out, CS is moving south. Developers look at numbers, not people's personal feelings. Location, location, location.

Large Houston company exec on why they have a new office in south CS vs. more tax friendly Bryan: "We save 30-45 minutes round trip to Houston/Woodlands from the new location. Our Customers and employees care most about project quality and time. Time is money, and CS is closer."

The new toll road to IAH is only going to help CS grow at the continued detriment of Bryan.

I apologize, I still have not perfected non-professional digital communication, and I forget that sarcasm/jest is hard to convey without the excessive use of emoticons.

I did not really take offense to any of the previous comments. I actually enjoy the different atmosphere in Bryan. If it weren't for Academy/Gander, I don't think I would go to College Station more than once a month.

And the business reasoning makes perfect sense, but I was talking about the University's economic impact. It would seem that as the businesses push further and further south, they would compete with the student housing/presence more, and drive a larger percentage of the student population (and daddy's plastic) north into Bryan.

That is why CS now has high rises. I don't know what would help Bryan. Revitalizing downtown? As own rental properties and most people specify they do not want to live in Bryan. It like people moving in think that CS and Bryan are in different universes. IMO, the school rankings are what have made people moving in avoid Bryan. I think when you've lived here for 20 years you see the difference, but it isn't a preconception. When you drive in and all you hear about is how good CS is compared to Bryan, the paradigm has ready been established.

One thing Bryan could do is have better zoning. A drive down TX and you can instantly tell what city you are in. That can't happen if Bryan wants to play with CS for $. Smoke shop, title loan, smoke shop, lingerie, Asian market, nail salon, title loan, pawn shop. Gotta clean that up....

The university talks about what will happen. The key is does it ever happen.

Daddy's plastic likes College Station because it's the college town. It's where sororities have houses that have been locked for 20 years because as one girl move out, another sorority sister moves in. Bryan needs to market itself to college students....if it wants college money. Wave Z islander and Campus Lodge or whatever it is now vs. the Factory and Warehouse..... That's Bryan's problem.

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Daddy's plastic likes College Station because it's the college town. It's where sororities have houses that have been locked for 20 years because as one girl move out, another sorority sister moves in. Bryan needs to market itself to college students....if it wants college money. Wave Z islander and Campus Lodge or whatever it is now vs. the Factory and Warehouse..... That's Bryan's problem.

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Z Islander is extremely popular with the Aggies. And so is Campus Lodge. I have worked with numerous students that have lived there. Downtown Bryan is also popular with the students . I was down there Friday night, and it was probably 75% students. Not a place to park after 6. Carney's is extremely popular with the sorority crowd.

College Station may be growing South, but that is not killing Bryan. Bryan is growing both East and West and to a small extent North. Don't forget that the Bio-Corridor/Atlas/Traditions developments are all in Bryan not College Station. The Texas A&M Health Science Center is in Bryan! If you don't think the Bio-Corridor is growing take a ride out there, construction is happening (Stella, a four star hotel is currently under construction out there). There is a new Blinn Campus about to start construction on the West-side of Bryan as well. There are many homes going up in Bryan, including a 600 plus home development going up on the West-side of the city.

As a poster mentioned above, Bryan is the old money city of the two cities. Many of you may not know it, but Post Oak Mall was supposed to be built in Bryan, but the old money ruined that plan.

I'm curious if an anti Bryan bias has clouded some local studies? If that many residents living across an invisible line are magically excluded from a study, and the researchers don't care and the results are skewed, it would explain why some retail only looks at one population and not the other. I've heard some say a retailer may build a smaller store because they only look at CS and never consider that people in Bryan shop too. If all this faulty info springs from anti Bryan bias at A&M, it all starts to make a little more sense.

It's not a bias, it's a developers decision on what will make a store successful. Walgreens and CVS are great examples. They want out of Bryan so bad they can't see straight.

Numbers don't have a bias. People's perceptions create bias. I guess it's easier to argue than accept the facts.

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Numbers don't have a bias. People's perceptions create bias. I guess it's easier to argue than accept the facts.

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Oh I agree. It's the decision to exclude certain numbers that I'm talking about.

They aren't excluding the numbers. When you add a number into a data set and it changes next to nothing, it's predictive validity is crap. Why would you just throw in factors that have no correlation to the project.

Typical techno