After a string of closures last year, Kroger is bringing a new supermarket to Greater Houston. The Cincinnati-based grocer is moving forward with plans for a new Kroger Marketplace store in Hockley, set to break ground Oct. 29. It will be the first in the Houston market this year.
The new Kroger will be part of a new 38-acre retail complex at 26217 Betka Road near Jubilee Haven.
Like many other Kroger locations, the new 99,000-square-foot grocery store will also have a pharmacy and fuel center, Shayna Barrett, Kroger’s head of communications and public affairs, told Chron. With an anticipated opening set for early 2028, the company is “eager to start this project,” she added.
Elsewhere, Kroger has stores under construction across North Texas, Barnett said. Two will open in Anna and Sendera Ranch later this year. The others are in Crandall, Fate, McKinney and Princeton.
“We have a number of sites identified (in Houston) and in the process of approval,” Texas Division President Rudy DiPietro told HBJ. “I expect that from 2028 forward, we’ll be growing. We’ll be building new stores every year in the market. We see incredible potential for growth, and like I said, part of that is just connected back to the fact that we’ve taken some time off from building new stores.”
Kroger has 1,232 grocery stores in 16 states, according to its website. Texas is home to 201 of them.
As Chron previously reported, Kroger closed five locations across the Houston area in 2025 as “part of a larger company-wide decision to run more efficiently and ensure the long-term health” of the business,” Barnett explained.
That same year, Kroger also upgraded 17 local stores in 2025.
But the new Hockley location is the first new store to be added in nearly a decade, as HBJ reported, following the Sugar Land store that opened in 2018.