Katy's Local Makers Lost Their Storefront in April and Rebuilt in Cinco Ranch by the Holidays

About five years ago, Christi Brzezicki started decorating Christmas trees for other people as a job. That grew into a small staging and redesign business. Last year she and her husband, Jim, started talking about running something together. According to Community Impact, they considered an RV park and a washateria before settling on the thing she knows best.

The result is The Shoppes at Juniper Lane, which opened Oct. 24 in Villagio Town Center. It's one of two new homes for Katy's independent makers that opened in Cinco Ranch this fall. The other, The Collective Boutiques, soft-opened in September in a South Fry Road storefront that was abruptly emptied in April. Most of the attention has gone to the much bigger retail project going up along I-10. Even so, the Cinco Ranch shops and Katy's seasonal markets have more on their shelves for the 2026 holidays than that project will have open before the new year.

April 14 emptied a familiar storefront on South Fry Road

Until this spring, 6729 S. Fry Road was home to Painted Tree Boutiques, where independent vendors rented their own retail spaces. My Neighborhood News reported that the chain closed all its locations nationwide on April 14, 2026. Vendors who had invested in their own retail spaces had to pull their merchandise quickly and find somewhere else to sell.

The space didn't stay empty for long. The Collective Boutiques is a new, separate company. It soft-opened in the same building on Sept. 5 and held its grand opening Oct. 3. My Neighborhood News notes that its model may feel familiar to anyone who shopped there before. Each independent owner designs and stocks a separate boutique. The Collective supplies the floor staff, checkout, payment processing and marketing. According to the company, shop owners pay monthly rent plus a flat 10% commission on gross sales. Its slogan is "boutiques, not booths."

The store is open daily from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. It has already posted three holiday dates:

• Nov. 7: Holiday Open House
• Nov. 27–28: Black Friday and Small Business Saturday
• Dec. 12: Jingle and Mingle Open House with Santa

Hours for these events haven't been posted yet.

Juniper Lane brings the same idea to Westheimer Parkway

The Shoppes at Juniper Lane is at 22762 Westheimer Parkway, Suite B240. It carries home decor, gifts, apparel, jewelry, candles, handmade pieces and seasonal decor from local makers. Christi Brzezicki told Community Impact the shop is meant to be an open-concept luxury boutique where everything feels curated, rather than a vendor shop with rows of booths.

"More than anything, we want The Shoppes to give Katy something a little different: a place to discover local makers, support small businesses, find beautiful and unique things you won't see everywhere else, and actually enjoy the experience of shopping," Brzezicki told Community Impact.

Juniper Lane isn't the only new arrival in Villagio Town Center. The Angry Elephant opened Oct. 19 at 22756 Westheimer Parkway, Suite 100, on the same stretch. On Cinco Ranch Boulevard, PopUp Bagels opened its second Greater Houston location Oct. 23 at 23501 Cinco Ranch Blvd. That's the same address listed for Heritage Square at LaCenterra, where the Sunday farmers market runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. with local vendors selling homemade goods and fresh produce. So a Sunday bagel stop and the market are now at one address.

The seasonal markets fill the weekends in between

The two new storefronts are open every day. Around them, Katy's holiday calendar adds a run of one-day and one-weekend markets. They're spread across Historic Town Square in Old Town, the Merrell Center and LaCenterra.

A few of these need more detail than a table row holds.

The Katy Exchange isn't a monthly market. The City of Katy calendar lists six dates for 2026: March 14, April 4, May 9 and June 13, then nothing until Nov. 14 and Dec. 5. That means the November and December editions are the series' first appearances since early summer. Event listings name the Katy Rice Harvest Festival as host of both. The Dec. 5 edition is called the Nutcracker Exchange. It shares the day with the city's Christmas tree lighting on the square. The vendor market runs 2 to 8 p.m., and the city still lists the lighting time as TBA.

Home for the Holidays Gift Market is the oldest event on the list. The organizer says it's in its 19th year in Katy and brings more than 130 selected merchants under one roof at the Merrell Center. Friday morning, 9 a.m. to noon, is reserved for "First Call" shopping. General admission starts at noon. Tickets let you come back on later days with your wristband and email confirmation.

That Friday, Nov. 20, is also the date LaCenterra lists for its Annual Tree Lighting. The center describes a 50-foot tree, holiday activities, live entertainment and vendor booths, with more details to come. If both are on your list, you could shop the gift market that afternoon and head to the tree lighting that evening, but check LaCenterra's posted schedule before you plan around it. LaCenterra also lists Santa's List on Dec. 11, details to come.

Out on I-10, most of the new stores open after the holidays

Meanwhile, the biggest retail project in the Katy area is opening out west. Texas Heritage Marketplace is NewQuest's 165-acre development along eastbound I-10 at Texas Heritage Parkway. Covering Katy describes it as a $400 million project planned for about 800,000 square feet of commercial space.

Three businesses are open so far:

• Target, at 29355 Katy Freeway, opened Oct. 11. It's a 148,000-square-foot store with an expanded grocery department, CVS Pharmacy, Starbucks and Target Optical. It's open daily from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Community Impact reported it as the largest food-forward Target in Greater Houston.
• Lowe's, at 981 Heritage Oak Lane, opened Sept. 4 with a 95,000-square-foot store and a 30,000-square-foot garden center.
• Whataburger, which is also open.

At the Oct. 6 Target ribbon-cutting, NewQuest president and chief development officer Austin Alvis told Community Impact that "we'll have another 40 tenants open over the course of the next six months." According to Covering Katy, many of those openings are expected in the first four months of 2027, not this December. Sam's Club is building a 168,000-square-foot store, and NewQuest's latest projection puts it in March 2027. Academy Sports + Outdoors, Burlington, Spec's, Ulta Beauty and EoS Fitness are among the buildings NewQuest expects to deliver in the first quarter of 2027. Store openings may come later, once tenants finish their interiors.

The restaurant list is long. It includes Texas Roadhouse, Olive Garden, Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen, Escalante's, Tony C's Pizza & Beer Garden, CAVA, Jersey Mike's, The Kebab Shop, Dave's Hot Chicken, Biscuit Belly, Aji Izakaya, JoJo Chinese Restaurant and Kilwins. All of them have been announced, and none have opened. The closest to opening may be Jersey Mike's at 1552 Heritage Oak Lane. A state filing lists projected construction completion of Nov. 30, but that date doesn't set an opening day. Bath & Body Works, James Avery, Mattress Firm and others have been announced without confirmed opening dates.

For this holiday season, the marketplace mostly means a new Target and Lowe's on the west side of Katy. The stores, restaurants and warehouse club that will make it a full shopping district are scheduled for 2027.

At Revilo Real Estate, we keep track of which corners of Katy are filling in and when, from a rebuilt boutique on South Fry Road to the next 40 storefronts along I-10. If you'd like that same local view when your own plans turn to a move, sign up to Receive Exclusive Listings and we'll keep you posted.