Shoppers look through products at Half Price Books vinyl section in Montrose Friday, Sept. 16, 2016, in Houston. The store closed in 2019, but a new one will replace it come 2027.
Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspap/Houston Chronicle via Getty Imag
Ever since Half Price Books’ Montrose location at 1011 Westheimer closed in 2021, a vacant lot has remained. Eventually a long-delayed high-rise will go up in its place. But until then, the empty concrete expanse serves as a reminder to some of a neighborhood that’s changed more than they’d like. It was often memorialized in the same breath as other hallowed Montrose institutions like Disco Kroger or one of the numerous gay bars that have shuttered over the years.
The news that Dallas-based Half Price Books would come back to Montrose, taking over the space record store Soundwaves occupied, felt like the universe righting itself. For Half Price, it’s also a move that’s been in the works since the previous location closed.
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Half Price President Kathy Doyle Thomas told Chron that developer Skanska USA Commercial Development, which owns the property now, did not renew the company’s lease and forced the store to close in 2021 when it redeveloped the old strip mall.
“He actually wanted us out before we were kicked out, but because we had a lease he couldn’t,” Thomas said with a laugh. “We’ve been looking for years for a space inside the Loop.”
The Montrose closure in 2021, as well as the closure of the Rice Village location in 2019 that was also prompted by high rent, left inner Houston without a Half Price location. The closest location to the inner city, as of now, is in the Westchase District off of Westheimer. The company’s other outposts are scattered throughout suburban Houston, with stores in Pearland, Humble, Clear Lake and Sugar Land. Thomas said that Half Price saw a dip in Houston area customers after the Inner Loop closures.
“Both of those [closures] were very, very difficult for us, and we lost customers,” Thomas told Chron. “Houston’s a big sprawling city, and people just don’t easily go from one store to the next.”
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When Soundwaves closed in April and the building went up for sale, Thomas said she immediately flew to Houston to see if the company could make a deal. She found Soundwaves owner Jeffrey Spargo agreeable, and said Spargo felt good about selling the building to a company that would keep some form of physical media in the space.
Half Price’s return to Montrose, Thomas said, is still in the early stages. The old Soundwaves building will be mostly unchanged, though that’s depending on a walkthrough inspection. If all goes according to plan, the store will be up and running in “early 2027.” The company’s distribution center in Dallas will provide initial stock, but soon after opening the store will begin buying books from the community to give it a true neighborhood feel. Thomas even hopes that some of the old employees from the shuttered Montrose store will come back. And the company says it has more planned for Houston, eventually.
“Montrose is such a great walking area,” Thomas said. “It’s such a great neighborhood … we thought, ‘We have to be back.'”
Two of the Montrose neighborhood’s newer residential towers rise up just south of the property on the southwest corner of Montrose Boulevard and Westheimer Road that includes a Mattress Firm and a Half Price Books that was recently purchased by residential towers rise up just south of the Skanksa USA , Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2020, in Houston. The company paid $27 million and says it will build a retail and residential project on the site.
Mark Mulligan/Staff photographer
“We believe in our concept.”
Since the store’s first-ever location opened in Dallas in 1972, Half Price Books has always felt old school. Even though it’s now a national chain operating in 19 states, each store still feels localized thanks to its model of buying from the neighborhoods where it operates. Things usually feel as cheap as the promise in the store’s name, too. But faced with rising rents, Half Price has had to rethink how it opens locations.
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The new Montrose store is illustrative of this. Over the years, Half Price has had to close stores due to rising rents, and some have been pushed out of locations by landlords who believe they can get more from big box stores.
“We’re being priced out of the market,” Thomas said. “I was in a meeting, and a landlord said, ‘Well, we’re not going to renew your lease because Ulta will pay more.'”
But the demand is there, Thomas says. While Americans aren’t reading as much, print books are still very popular. The medium has seen a boom from Gen Z readers who, in addition to enjoying physical, tactile media, want to read physical books, too. Half Price, as a purveyor of cheap books and magazines, is riding that wave.
“Our sales are up across the chain. We are very, very healthy. We’re doing great,” Thomas said. “People are coming back to reading.”
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A chain that believes in selling used books, movies, vinyl and more at, well, “half price,” can only pay so much in rent, resulting in a shuffle of locations. In January, Half Price bought a building in Austin and announced it would move its South Lamar location to the new property. Thomas said that similar moves have happened in San Antonio and Pittsburgh. Half Price has begun buying properties in full when it can and paying in cash to avoid being kicked out of strip malls and developments it operates in. The company is in a good place, Thomas said, and is debt-free. Half Price’s business mantra, she said, is that “we don’t do anything we can’t afford.”
“If we got to the point to save the company, we’d sell the buildings, we’d sell real estate because we would not close the company down,” Thomas said. “It’s guaranteeing the company’s success by giving us some tangible assets and kind of controlling our own destiny.”
“We believe in our concept,” Thomas said. “We believe in staying in the neighborhoods where we have stores.”
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