Ask anyone shopping near the I-10 and Loop 1604 East interchange about the new H-E-B, and you'll hear the same pitch inside a minute: buy now, because once that store opens, values go up. It's a clean story. It matches what most people believe about grocery anchors and property values. It's also not what the last year and a half of Converse sales data actually shows.
The H-E-B project at the center of this story isn't a rumor. It's been public record since a Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation filing surfaced in February 2025, confirmed since by H-E-B's own newsroom. That's roughly 18 months of open knowledge about a 125,000 square foot store landing on Converse's doorstep. If proximity to a new grocery anchor moved prices the way the pitch suggests, some trace of that should show up in the comps by now. It hasn't. Understanding why is more useful to a buyer or seller in this market than the pitch itself.
What's Actually Under Construction At I-10 And Loop 1604
The facts here are specific enough to plan around, which is rare for a project still under construction. H-E-B confirmed the store sits at the intersection of I-10 and Loop 1604 East, on a site the state filing lists at 10137 Interstate 10 East. The building runs a little more than 125,000 square feet, with the original permit putting the exact figure at 125,434 square feet and construction cost at just over $21.2 million. The store will carry a True Texas BBQ restaurant with indoor seating, a pharmacy with drive-thru service, more than 30 curbside parking spaces, and home delivery coverage for the surrounding area. H-E-B named Will Tate as the store's general manager, noting he's originally from the area and has run other H-E-B locations before this one.
A second piece of the same site is moving on its own timeline. A separate permit filed in February 2026 covers a roughly 6,000 square foot convenience store, fuel station, and car wash on the same parcel, budgeted at about $4 million, with construction targeted to wrap by October 7, 2026. The grocery store itself is still tracking toward a late 2026 opening. One local outlet covering the project put it plainly:
the new H-E-B and gas station could be open in time for this year's holiday season
That's the timeline. Two structures, one site, both aimed at closing out 2026.
The Land Was Bought In 2015. That Timing Matters
Here's the detail that changes how you should read the price question. H-E-B didn't option this land last year in response to a hot Converse market. The company bought the roughly 60-acre site back in 2015, more than a decade before ground actually broke. That sequence matters because it answers a question most people never think to ask about grocery anchors: did the store cause the growth, or is the store just catching up to growth that was already happening for other reasons?
Economists who study retail siting patterns have found this cuts both ways more often than people assume. Rising prices and a growing population can pull new stores into a neighborhood just as easily as a new store can pull prices up. A grocer land-banking a site for ten years before building tells you the decision was made on long-range population and traffic projections, not on last year's comps. That's useful to know if you're being told the store itself is the reason to buy in a specific pocket of Converse right now. The store didn't create this corridor's growth. It's arriving after most of that growth already happened, which is a different story than the one usually told.
What The Comps Actually Say Right Now
If an announced, under-construction grocery anchor were already moving prices, Converse's numbers would show some lift by now. They don't.
| Metric | Figure | Timeframe |
|---|---|---|
| Typical home value (Zillow Home Value Index) | $266,258, down 0.6% year over year | As of June 2026 |
| Active listings citywide | 472 homes for sale | As of June 10, 2026 |
| New listings added | 120 in the preceding 30 days | As of June 10, 2026 |
| Median sale price, trailing 30 days | $242,999, down 12.6% year over year | As of June 10, 2026 |
Read those four lines together and the picture is a market with more supply hitting it than a year ago, not less, and a median sale price that's lower, not higher. If the H-E-B news were driving anticipatory buying, you'd expect tighter inventory and firmer prices in the corridor closest to the store. Citywide, the opposite is showing up.
That doesn't mean the store has no effect. It means the effect isn't citywide, and it isn't happening yet. A grocery anchor's price influence, when it exists, tends to show up in a tight radius around the store itself, not spread evenly across an entire suburb. Converse's citywide numbers are simply too broad an instrument to detect a hyperlocal bump even if one were forming block by block near the interchange.
Why Announcements Don't Move Prices But Openings Sometimes Do
Research on grocery proximity and home values has repeatedly found a real premium exists once a store is open and drawing consistent traffic. The effect tends to grow, not shrink, as more food retail clusters into a corridor rather than flattening out the way you'd expect from simple convenience math. But that premium attaches to a functioning store with a parking lot full of cars, not to a filing, a permit, or a construction fence.
That gap between announcement and realized value is where most of the "buy now before it opens" advice falls apart. A filing is a promise. A grand opening is a fact a buyer down the street can see with their own eyes and price accordingly. Converse is currently sitting in the promise phase for both the grocery store and the gas station and car wash next to it. The data reflects exactly that: nothing has changed yet, because nothing has opened yet.
The ADS Sports Complex Is Running The Same Experiment
Converse isn't testing this pattern with just one project. The Converse Economic Development Corporation has also been developing the ADS Sports Complex, a facility built around basketball training and competition that will serve as home court for the ADS Sentinels, a professional team competing in The Basketball League. It's designed to bring dining and event space alongside the athletic facilities, and it's been framed publicly as a long-term investment in making Converse a gathering destination rather than a pass-through suburb.
Like the H-E-B, it's a real, named, funded project with a clear community purpose. Like the H-E-B, it's still in development, not open for business. Two separate anchor projects moving through the same city at the same time, both still under construction, is a useful reminder that Converse's current growth story is built on things that are coming, not things that have already landed and repriced the market.
What This Means If You're Comparing Converse Right Now
If you're weighing Converse against other Central Texas suburbs, the H-E-B is a legitimate long-term reason to like the area. It is not, right now, a reason to expect a short-term price jump, and it's not a justification for a seller to price a listing above what recent comps support just because the store is confirmed. The citywide data through mid-2026 doesn't back that up.
What's more useful is watching two things as the year closes out. First, whether homes within roughly a mile of the I-10 and Loop 1604 East interchange start behaving differently than the rest of Converse once the store and the fuel station are actually operating, since that's the radius where a real premium would show up first if one materializes. Second, whether Bexar County's appraisal comps in that immediate area start reflecting higher sale prices once actual transactions occur near a functioning store, rather than near a construction site. Until then, the fair read is that Converse's fundamentals, not a not-yet-open grocery store, are what should drive your decision.
Quick Questions About Timing Your Move
Will my property's appraised value jump once the H-E-B opens? Appraisal districts value property based on comparable sales, not on nearby announcements or construction progress. Any change would follow actual sales near the store after it opens, not the opening itself.
Should I wait to sell until after the store is running? That depends on your own timeline more than the store's. The data through mid-2026 shows no citywide premium yet, so there's no clear financial reason to delay a sale specifically because of the H-E-B's construction status.
Is a listing priced higher because it's near the future store a red flag? Not automatically, but it's worth checking recent comps in that specific radius rather than accepting a premium based on the store's existence alone. Right now, the surrounding data doesn't support pricing ahead of an amenity that hasn't opened.
If you're weighing a purchase or a sale anywhere near this corridor, or anywhere else across Converse, New Braunfels, or greater San Antonio, Marti Realty Group can walk you through what the current comps actually support before you commit to a number. Get a free quote and see how much you can save.
