CHAIN STORE AGE | August 2, 2024 | Written By: Al Urbanski
Fifty years ago, the area on which The Woodlands, Texas, now resides was a bare 44 square miles of land, 20 miles north of downtown Houston. Then Texas oil investor George Mitchell bought it and used HUD Title VII to transform it into a master-planned, suburban community that now holds 120,000 residents with average household incomes of $150,000.
Thirty years later, another prominent Texas businessman, Terry Montesi, the CEO of Trademark Property Company, arrived in The Woodlands and bought a parcel of land to devel[1]op a retail-based community center.
“The Woodlands didn’t have a downtown, so we created a center with lots of public space where people could shop and gather,” Montesi said.
Today, that downtown, Market Street, has evolved into a swank shopping and social center that invites Woodlanders to “Live Life in Luxury.” Its Central Park is bookended by a Tommy Bahama Café and Sixty Vines and surrounded by shops like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Saint Laurent, Omega, and Chanel Beauty—most of which have arrived at the center in the last five years.
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