Goodwill building new, larger stores as thrifting grows in popularity (2024)

Thrifters are about to find bargains galore in a multimillion-dollar retail development going up in northeastern Bexar County.

Goodwill San Antonio, a nonprofit that uses the revenue from reselling donated goods to provide jobs and training, is building a new store at the intersection of North Loop 1604 and Interstate 35.

The 3-acre parcel will be home to a 25,000-square-foot store on Gateway Boulevard that is a model for the kinds of stores Goodwill is now focused on building.

It will be located across the highway from Ikea, the 300,000-square-foot Scandinavian home goods warehouse store that opened in 2019, in the busy Live Oak intersection that’s about to get even more development.

Goodwill’s new neighbors will include a mixed-use development and a restaurant.

And the 100-year-old Alterman electrical contractor is also building its new corporate campus on a large parcel of land behind the nonprofit’s tract.

The new Goodwill store will replace a smaller facility less than a mile away in the Gateway Plaza shopping center that it has outgrown after 17 years in that location.

The lease there ends in October, said Janice Bunch, president and chief operating officer at Goodwill San Antonio, so leaders there started in 2019 hunting for land on which to build.

There are 22 stores in the 24-county Goodwill San Antonio region, which stretches from the Texas Hill Country town of Kerrville to the border town of Laredo and west to Uvalde.

The move to an owned property versus one that’s leased is a strategy adopted several years ago for the nonprofit’s donated goods retail operation.

“Part of that strategy is based on the fact that it’s very, very difficult for Goodwill to find existing properties to lease that will accommodate a donor [drive-thru] and a backroom production space adequately,” Bunch said.

“We are not a typical retailer, so we need just as much production space and facilities as we do retail sales floor space.”

The new Live Oak store will be similar in size to the one on Blanco Road, north of Loop 1604, that opened two years ago.

Expected to be complete in early October, the thrifter’s mecca will be more brightly lit than some of Goodwill’s leased stores and have a two-lane drive-through for donations. The volume of goods for sale will be almost double what’s available for purchase in the Gateway store.

The cost to develop such a store is between $6 million and $8 million, Bunch said. San Antonio-based Metro is the general contractor.

Donna Lowder, economic development corporation manager for the 5-square-mile City of Live Oak, a bedroom community in the San Antonio-Austin corridor, said the parcel where Goodwill is building is “going to be a busy place.”

In addition to Goodwill and the new restaurant, a mixed-use development with retail and medical offices is also in the works.

The City of Live Oak did not provide economic incentives for the Goodwill or Alterman developments as it did for the town center that includes Ikea, Lowder said. The nonprofit has not asked for incentives.

“The big blue giant [Ikea] is always a plus in a city our size,” she said. “They have surpassed any kind of outcome in sales tax that we even thought would come our way.”

The high volume of traffic in the area will give Goodwill greater visibility, Bunch said.

Not that generous donors had a hard time finding the Gateway store.

That 13,000-square-foot facility is bursting at the seams, with between 60,000 and 70,000 items donated there a year. Temporary mobile storage units are needed for the overflow. Some donations are boxed and sent to an operations center to be redistributed to another store.

The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to a massive amount of donated goods across the entire 155-member Goodwill national network as people stayed home and cleaned out their closets, Bunch said.

Customer traffic and sales also have increased with the growing interest in reusing and repurposing clothing and household goods.

“So we’re really excited about this option to get into a facility that’s really going to optimize our productivity and be a much better workplace for employees, quite frankly,” Bunch said. “That’s been high on our priority list.”

Goodwill San Antonio has a retail workforce of 850, mostly people who are experiencing barriers to employment such as a criminal record or physical or mental challenges. Goodwill provides jobs and leadership training with pay and benefits.

Another 700 people employed by Goodwill work at local military installations fulfilling the nonprofit’s federal contracts for administrative and grounds maintenance work.

“Our goal is all about helping people use the workplace and become successful in their personal life as they’re sustaining employment and continuing to grow in their careers,” Bunch said. “The revenue that we generate from donations goes to pay for that plus a fairly good wage.”

In July, Goodwill is also opening another new store, a 23,000-square-foot facility at Bandera Road and Loop 1604.

“This one has been in the works for many years,” Bunch said. “It’s just been a challenge to get the property secured, but it is well underway.”

Also in July, Goodwill plans to open a leased space in Spring Branch at State Highway 46 and U.S. Highway 281 North.

The nonprofit has searches underway for space to open stores in the New Braunfels and Cibolo areas, places where population and housing density is growing at a rapid pace, Bunch said.

But Goodwill also leases space in Southwest San Antonio that could be replaced by stores it develops and owns.

Bunch said the nonprofit has big expansion plans, though it might take a while to complete them.

“Our territory is vast. We haven’t expanded much in the past,” she said. “We have that opportunity now.”