If you live in Jordan Ranch, Tamarron, or Cane Island, how far east on I-10 do you have to drive for a garden center, a Target run, and a bulk-club haul? Until this month the answer was "a fair distance." By January it should be "across the freeway from Buc-ee's."
Texas Heritage Marketplace is NewQuest Properties' $400 million, 165-acre development at the southeast corner of Interstate 10 and Texas Heritage Parkway. It sits in Waller County, inside Katy's extraterritorial jurisdiction but outside the city limits. Most coverage treats it as a growing list of store names. The more useful thing to know is the order the stores open in. The developer has phased the project so the places you need open first and the places you'd stay a while open last. That order decides what the center is good for in each season over the next year.
The opening order is the plan
NewQuest's April 2026 groundbreaking release spelled out the sequence. Lowe's, Target, and a membership wholesale club were each under construction, with staggered openings starting in September. The four junior anchors, the EoS Fitness gym, and a five-acre greenspace called Heritage Grove are all targeted for the first quarter of 2027. David Meyers, NewQuest's managing director of leasing and development, described the site this way in the same release:
"The attraction for so many top brands is Texas Heritage Marketplace's dynamic location, which is a first-in, last-out intersection for the surrounding residential developments."
"First-in, last-out" means the stop you pass on the way home. A center built around that idea opens with what you buy on the way home and adds the reasons to stay once traffic is already coming. Here is where each piece stands as of September 30, 2026.
| Phase | Tenants | Status as of late September 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Open | Lowe's, Whataburger | Lowe's held its grand opening Sept. 4; Whataburger is open around the clock |
| This month | Target | Scheduled to open Oct. 11 |
| Winter | Sam's Club | Targeting a January opening |
| Q1 2027 target | Academy Sports + Outdoors, Burlington, Spec's, Ulta Beauty, EoS Fitness, Heritage Grove | Under construction |
| Announced, timing open | Texas Roadhouse, Olive Garden, Cava, 7 Brew Coffee, The Kebab Shop, Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen, and others | In development or in permitting |
This fall is for errands
Lowe's came first and arrived large. According to Community Impact, the store at 981 Heritage Oak Lane has about 95,000 square feet of retail space and roughly 30,000 square feet of outdoor garden area. It also has a redesigned kitchen showroom with central desks for installation and service projects. It is one of the first Lowe's locations with a reworked tool department, laid out with wider aisles and lower fixtures. The company says it is the ninth new Lowe's in Texas and the third in Greater Houston in just over a year.
Whataburger opened at 925 Texas Heritage Parkway in August. It offers dine-in, drive-through, and delivery 24 hours a day.
Target opens Oct. 11 at 29355 Katy Freeway, and it is the biggest store open so far. At 148,000 square feet it is more than half again the size of the Lowe's sales floor. Target says it will be the largest food-forward Target in Greater Houston, with a Starbucks, a CVS Pharmacy, Target Optical, and EV charging inside or on site. It will also offer drive-up, order pickup, and same-day and next-day delivery. Put those together and one parking lot covers groceries, a prescription, a coffee, and an eye appointment. That is the "on the way home" stop working as designed.
Winter adds the bulk run
The third anchor is Sam's Club. Covering Katy's September reporting says it is targeting a January opening. An earlier construction filing estimated late July 2026, and that date has come and gone, so January is the current figure to plan around. A July 2026 leasing plan lists the Sam's Club with its fuel station at 167,989 square feet, which would make it the largest building on the site.
Sit-down dining is on a slower track. Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen is planned for 29053 Katy Freeway. A January 2026 report said its permits projected construction from April through Christmas Day 2026. That is a construction window, not a confirmed opening date.
Heritage Grove is when the center becomes a place to stay
The part of the project NewQuest calls the "bull's eye" is the multi-tenant phase where ground broke in April. Heritage Grove is about five acres of park-like greenspace, ringed by 35,000 square feet of restaurants and spa- or fitness-related shops. Next to it go about 100,000 square feet of junior anchor space: Academy Sports + Outdoors at 51,068 square feet, Burlington at 22,147, Spec's Fine Wines & Spirits at 16,806, and Ulta Beauty at 10,000. EoS Fitness is planned beside the greenspace in a 40,000-square-foot building. NewQuest is aiming to deliver all of it in the first quarter of 2027.
The restaurants around the green are what turn a shopping trip into an evening. NewQuest has said Escalante's, Tony C's Pizza & Beer Garden, Aji Izakaya, and Kilwins signed preleases for the greenspace area. Covering Katy lists Texas Roadhouse, Olive Garden, 7 Brew Coffee, The Kebab Shop, and Cava among the food tenants announced for the wider development. A 10,000-square-foot multi-tenant building has commitments from James Avery, Mattress Firm, and The Kebab Shop, and a Chase Bank branch is under construction.
So the patio-dinner, gym, and weekend-browsing version of Texas Heritage Marketplace belongs to 2027. This fall's version is a strong errand center with one burger drive-through open all night.
Names you may hear that are not settled
Leasing plans, brochures, and state filings all circulate, and they don't always agree. These names have appeared in coverage without a confirmed deal:
- P. Terry's Burger Stand filed plans with the state for a 4,056-square-foot restaurant at 29269 Katy Freeway, with construction projected from January to August 2027. The marketplace brochure still lists it as "in negotiation," and Covering Katy notes that state filing schedules often change.
- Biscuit Belly and Jersey Mike's showed up on a July 2026 leasing plan, but that report did not establish signed leases.
- Chick-fil-A appeared in a January 2026 article that mixed confirmed and proposed tenants, so that list alone doesn't confirm it.
- A grocery anchor. NewQuest markets the center as grocery-anchored but says anchor spaces are still available. No grocer has been named as a committed tenant.
NewQuest has described the development as close to 95% leased, so most of the remaining announcements will fill in names on a plan that is already largely set.
The road came first, and the ramps come later
The sequencing goes back further than the store openings. Community Impact reported that the marketplace was originally expected to break ground in 2020, once Texas Heritage Parkway was finished. The parkway opened in August 2021, and marketplace construction started in early 2025. The parkway runs about 6.5 miles between I-10 and FM 1093 near Fulshear. That is why NewQuest names Jordan Ranch, Tamarron, Willow Creek Farms, Cross Creek Ranch, Firethorne, Young Ranch, Sunterra, and Lakehouse among the communities the center serves.
The infrastructure underneath is mostly in place. On Aug. 10, 2026, Katy City Council accepted the water, sewer, drainage, and street improvements along Heritage Oak Lane, along with a city-operated sewer lift station. The freeway access is not finished. As of April 2026, TxDOT was still designing dedicated I-10 entrance and exit ramps for the development. Until those ramps are built, you get to Lowe's, Whataburger, and the new Target through the I-10 and Texas Heritage Parkway intersection.
If the new stores along Texas Heritage Parkway are changing how you think about where your household fits in west Katy, I'm glad to walk through which nearby communities sit closest to what's open now and what's coming in 2027. Reach out to Travis Harris. Let's Connect.
