Despite its growth, development and offering of incentives, Hutto will remain without an H-E-B grocery store in 2014.

The San Antonio–based grocery chain currently owns land in Hutto's unincorporated jurisdiction near the Star Ranch housing development adjacent to SH 130 and Gattis School Road. Hutto city officials said they thought the company would open a location in 2014, but H-E-B officials have said they have no construction plans in Hutto in the near future.

"At this time we do not have plans to build a store," said Tamra Jones, H-E-B senior public affairs specialist. "We look forward to working with the community and city leaders when the store build is announced."

Mayor Debbie Holland said the grocer's decision is discouraging, especially given the city's efforts to work with the company.

"H-E-B has a set number of stores that they build a year, and we did not make the cut," she said. "It was very disappointing."

The absence of a grocer in Hutto has led to widespread frustration among its residents and officials. One of the reasons the city has yet to notch its own store can be attributed to its proximity to a number of other grocery chains, according to Joey Grisham, Hutto Economic Development Corp. president and CEO.

When building locations, retail companies typically look at how many customers they can attract within an eight- to 10-minute drive time without pulling customers from their other nearby stores. Building too close to another location can result in stores taking customers and revenue from each other.

There is speculation that H-E-B owning land within the city may also be deterring other grocery chains, such as Sprouts, Randalls, Whole Foods Market and Walmart, from building.

"H-E-B is the predominant grocer in Texas," Holland said. "I feel like any of these grocers know that if they come in, it's just a matter of time that H-E-B will come, and they don't want to be undersold. It's hard to compete against the biggest guy."

Despite no grocery store plans on the horizon, Grisham and Holland said the city will continue to reach out and offer incentives to interested builders.

To better attract companies, the city regularly sends out reports on its demographics, and Holland said traffic reports conducted at 15 points in the city show a traffic flow of more than 25,000 vehicles per day.

"Our traffic counts have gone up," she said. "Anything we can do to demonstrate continued growth and forward movement is huge."

City building permit numbers nearly doubled from 2012 to 2013, with many developers working to finish existing developments and new subdivisions in and around Hutto such as Mager Meadows. Considering its size, Grisham said the city is ripe for its own store.

"At this point, it's really unusual that we don't have a grocery store in a market our size with our growth pattern," Grisham said. "It's time for somebody to pull the trigger."