SAN ANTONIO \u2013 Before the sun came up Wednesday, a spark was already ignited among the crowd gathered outside a brand-new H-E-B store on San Antonio\u2019s far East Side.<\/p>\n
Employees walked down the line, which at one point had swelled to more than 1,000 people, to shake hands and share pleasantries.<\/p>\n
Nearby, other workers dressed in costumes that looked like food items danced along the sidewalk as music blasted from a loudspeaker.<\/p>\n
Kenneth Cotton took it all in but then left rather than stand on his feet for too long. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe line was humongous. The crowd, the parking lot, it was filled with everybody and everything,\u201d he said when he returned hours later.<\/p>\n
Cotton was among those who were anxious for a peek inside the super-sized supermarket, a store now five minutes away from his Converse home.<\/p>\n
It was a long-awaited staple for their area, which they say had been without many options for grocery shopping. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur choice was to go to La Vernia, which is 20 minutes away, or to FM 78, which is a smaller H-E-B, unfortunately. This is great,\u201d said John Garcia, another late-morning shopper.<\/p>\n
Garcia, who has lived in the area for the past 10 years, said shopping had become a chore which always involved traveling.<\/p>\n
Lately, he and others have noticed a lot of other people on the move, specifically moving into their area.<\/p>\n
The new H-E-B store, they say, is an outward sign of the growth that region has been experiencing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing how it\u2019s blown up. There was nothing out here,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cAll of a sudden, you saw these developments being built, the new homes, it\u2019s just exploded.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said on what was once farmland, he has noticed subdivisions sprouting up like weeds.<\/p>\n
Johnny McDonald is relatively new to the area, a transplant from California who has lived on the far East Side for about two years.<\/p>\n
Even in his relatively short stay, though, the change has not escaped him. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I moved into my neighborhood, I would say we had maybe 40 homes,\u201d McDonald said. \u201cBut now I would say all through the neighborhood we\u2019re at about 200-300.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sound of construction has become commonplace for them. <\/p>\n
Images from Google Earth show the dramatic change there, how areas that once were green have been replaced by newly built homes.<\/p>\n
The area of growth extends beyond San Antonio city limits. It borders sections of Bexar County, as well as the city of Converse.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything about growth is good,\u201d Cotton said.<\/p>\n
He said he is open to whatever changes are in store, including the new store itself. <\/p>\n
More coverage of this story on KSAT:<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 Before the sun came up Wednesday, a spark was already ignited among the crowd gathered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,10510,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-480846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-east-side","tag-h-e-b","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}