Update on Old Hypermart USA Property 8/04/20 K.Agee

While the old Hypermart USA property located at 3159 S. Garland Rd is not within our boundaries, many of you may be curious about its demolition and future plans.

This was the site of a large (226,000 sq/ft on 24 acres) retail experiment called “Hypermart USA”. It opened in December 1987, and was even larger than the modern-day Wal-Mart Superstores that it helped define. This original store was shut down by Wal-Mart in May 2008, and was eventually sold to the Malouf family in 2010 with a deed restriction lasting until 2030 basically preventing it from being used for any business similar to that of a Wal-Mart store.

In 2014, it was purchased by “Best Center Garland, LLC”. This company intended to use the space as a self-storage business, but was never able to get it going. Between that time and 2017, it degraded from a giant parking lot for trucks, etc. into home to vagrants, crime, and other code-compliance issues.

The City of Garland negotiated with the owners for a few years, and finally talked them down from their $8.5M asking price to $6.5M with the condition that the owners clear off the property. This deal was finalized in 2017.

The City hired consultants to find the best use for the location, but there have not been any really good suggestions. This is partly due to the local demographics not being able to support many endeavors, and partly due to poor access from LBJ Freeway for more regional businesses. The main recommendation is for the City to wait for the upcoming LBJ Freeway improvements to be completed… which will also improve access from LBJ to Garland Rd and improve its potential.

Some good news came recently, when the main contractor for the LBJ Freeway improvements came looking for a staging area, and reached an agreement to lease the property for the next five years. The company, Pegasus Link Constructors (“PLC”) has agreed to a long list of requirements, not the least being able to capture more than 99.9% of particulates from the concrete batch operation they plan to set up there. They will also be required to clean up the site before they leave. There are more details, but basically they will strive to have a zero-pollution footprint there. They also claim it is unlikely they will need an extension on the lease, since their main contract with the State of Texas calls for massive daily fines if they can’t complete the project on time. The City of Garland will receive $15,000/month in leasing fees for the 5 year period.

Updates for this project can be found here:

http://GarlandTX.gov/Garland635Info