I've been trying to think of what to do for this site. I bounced around ideas (soft reboot and focus on a more consistent topic, refocusing on stuff off of highways instead of anything, a Texas-exclusive focus) but in the end I thought what I had been doing, is doing posts on a very small selection of buildings, not large directories, meaning posts like this will have to be broken up or removed. Already I did stuff like spin off Big's Meat Market from a larger Buda/Kyle topic.
As part of this new revamp, the focus is on MarketPlace Shopping Center in Temple. I've uploaded a PDF of the shopping center as of 2025 here (archived from here and wanted to discuss a few of the major tenants in more detail, particularly H-E-B, Kohl's, and the restaurants out front. It recycles content from Carbon-izer.com as well, though the future posts will have more care taken for them.
The Kohl's (located at 3170 S. 31st Street) started out as a Woolco in 1980 (moving from an I-35 location), then after the entire Woolco chain folded, it became a Montgomery Ward in 1983 and operating to the end of the chain's life (early 2001) but remained with signage up a few years afterward. The Kohl's opened in September 2011 according to this article and should be noted that as Montgomery Ward, its address was 3002A S. 31st Street. H-E-B is the other major anchor (opened in 1980) and I've been to it at least once, and it's been renovated more than once. I believe it was last renovated in the mid-2010s (before that, carrying circa-2000 decor) though I don't know the details of the store's opening. Many of the older tenants carry the 3002 address like H-E-B but the modern ones like Kohl's no longer do.
The three restaurants out front are also of interest.
The Whataburger (1415 SW H K Dodgen Loop) is perhaps the most interesting. I remember stopping at this location sometime in late 2016 or early 2017 after a day of outside work at a ranch. While the cold drink and the protein of the hamburger revived my spirits, I was intrigued by the large, "Playplace" part of the building, as if it had a playground at one point. The room was closed to the public (it was used as employee offices/storage, apparently) and while the thought of Whataburger having a playground wasn't out of the question (I seem to recall a kid's meal mascot, for instance) it hadn't actually occurred to me that it was in fact not a Whataburger to begin with, having been a Burger King opened in 1999 but closed within a decade. It was seized by U.S. Marshals in November 2004 (it did not reopen) and in November 2007 was reopened as a Whataburger. Before Whataburger was built, a Pizza Hut was here from 1991 to 1997. Before that I'm not sure, if anything, what was there. Next to it is Starbucks (1313 SW H K Dodgen Loop), opened as Golden Fried Chicken (Golden Chick) in 1999 and became Starbucks around April 2004 (I believe Golden Chick closed late 2003). You can see another photo of the Starbucks at StarbucksEverywhere.net. Finally, Taco Bell, at 1201 SW H K Dodgen Loop is the oldest of the three, and had changed its store number store number (2308) and address (3002 South 31st Street, the number of the whole plaza) in 2014 to the Dodgen Loop address and a new store number (30125) without rebuilding. Despite looking nothing like the original 1983 store, BCAD indicates the building is original to 1983 (just expanded).
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