Tom Whitehurst

Sunday, November 19, 2000

In September, two months before the public learned that there's serious talk of a $677 million development to go with Packery Channel, Padre Island banker John Trice addressed a simpler need.
   He wants a grocery store on the island.
   But not just any grocery store. An H-E-B.
   An H-E-B would be more than a convenience, he said. It would be a linchpin for business growth on the island.
   He said as much in an open letter to the company's chief executive officer, Charles Butt.
   "Mr. Butt, we Padre Islanders have a unique and confusing problem. For most of us, a trip to your nearest store is over 16 miles round trip. For a community of over 7,000 permanent residents with above-average consumption power, this problem is often frustrating and hard to make sense of."
   'Help you build the store'
   Trice took a one-local-boy-to-another tone, reminiscing about shopping at an H-E-B on Ayers Street during childhood and getting a free bicycle in sixth grade "for an accumulation of cash register tapes, which represented our loyal purchases over time."
   He also challenged Butt to "drive out to the island and knock on 20 doors anonymously. I think that the response from residents will overwhelm you. Heck, most of us would help you build the store if we had to."
   Trice didn't mail the letter, but he published it in the September issue of the Padre Island Business Bulletin. A mutual friend delivered a copy to Butt, but not before several H.E. Butt employees in Corpus Christi faxed him a copy.
   'Taking a hard look'
   Butt wrote a letter to Trice and promised to send some of his key people to talk to the banker.
   "He sent down some very senior people and they are really taking a hard look at the market," Trice said.
   The emissaries were regional vice president Jeff Thomas, real estate director Eric Moede and public affairs and advertising director Debbie Lindsey-Opel.
   They didn't promise a new island H-E-B anytime soon.
   "Given what we know, we are not putting a store on the island at this point in time," Lindsey-Opel said.
   Lindsey-Opel declined to say what magic numbers would cause the company to build on the island, but Trice said his impression is that 10,000 permanent island residents would be enough.
   The Padre Island Business Association may conduct its own count to speed the process along, he said.
   "I think H-E-B has the interest, but like any good business, you have to make a good decision on the deployment of capital. We have to help them justify the business plan."
   Lindsey-Opel also wouldn't say outright that the company is worried that the Flour Bluff store would suffer if the company built on the island. "Whenever we are looking at adding a store," she said, "we do consider the impact that store may have on stores in the surrounding area."
   Community connection
   Butt and Thomas couldn't be reached for comment. It would have been interesting to hear Butt's thoughts on the growth of the island, which was uninhabited and connected to the mainland by a two-lane swing bridge when he was a young man living here. It also would have been interesting to hear Thomas' perspective as a current island resident doing without an H-E-B within eight miles.
   Trice has been playing that community connection angle for all it's worth. He said he and just about all other island residents want an H-E-B, specifically, because of the company's historic commitment here and what it could mean to the island's business community.
   'We want H-E-B'
   "The sentiment is, we want H-E-B. They're the hometown hero, so they're the ones who should be out here helping build the community."
   Island businesses suffer because there's no H-E-B to keep the dollars on the island, he said. Island residents drive to the mainland to grocery shop, and then do their other shopping during the same trip, for convenience, rather than using island merchants, he said.
   "An H-E-B would be an economic catalyst," Trice said, "especially if it has lease space."
   'With or without Packery'
   Trice pointed out other obvious reasons to build on the island - H-E-B could be there ahead of Albertson's and Wal-Mart, and the residents are mostly rich folks who can afford lots of groceries.
   Oh, yeah, and there's Packery Channel. But as far as Trice is concerned, that shouldn't be a tiebreaker.
   "We have to plan life for this community with or without Packery. If we don't have Packery, we're still going to grow.
   "My prayers have always been that Mr. Butt would wake up one day and say, 'Guys, let's just do it. We know all the reasons not to do it, but let's do it.' "
  

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