Walmart is planning a massive new distribution center in Cibolo, set to rise on 126 acres at 3641 S. Santa Clara Road right next to the Aisin auto-parts plant. The project, which the city has code-named Project Theo, calls for a 712,500-square-foot warehouse with a 31,933-square-foot connected office, and it's expected to bring at least 425 full-time jobs paying above the San Antonio metro area's median salary.
According to San Antonio Express-News, the distribution center is anticipated to cost $400 million. That figure conflicts with earlier reporting from Community Impact, which described Project Theo as requiring a minimum capital investment of $450 million when Cibolo approved its incentive package last November. Neither figure has been reconciled in available records, and both are presented here as reported by their respective outlets.
Construction is expected to begin in February and wrap up by August 2029, per the Express-News report. The site itself has a layered history: it sits on the same address once occupied by the San Antonio Raceway, now listed as permanently closed on Google Maps and Yelp, with a phone number that Texas Public Radio found is no longer in service when it called to check.
Robots, Not Just Racks, Inside the Warehouse
The facility is expected to run on a mix of robots, high-tech equipment and the human operators who manage that equipment, the Express-News reports. That fits a pattern Walmart set in 2021, when the retailer contracted automation firm Symbotic to install automated storage and retrieval systems across all 42 of its regional distribution centers by 2034. Cibolo's planned warehouse would be one piece of that broader automation push.
Walmart already serves the Interstate 35 corridor out of its distribution center in New Braunfels, a facility that opened in 1988 and now spans more than 1 million square feet. That New Braunfels complex employs more than 1,100 workers at an average hourly wage of $27 and supplies more than 100 Walmart stores across Central, South and Southwest Texas, according to Community Impact's coverage of a proposed expansion there. The retailer recently put $20 million into modernizing that existing facility with robotics and equipment upgrades, and the planned expansion would further increase distribution capacity, add truck and trailer operations, and bring in more logistics technology.
Why Cibolo Keeps Drawing Industrial Investment
Cibolo's appeal for distribution companies largely comes down to geography, sitting at the crossroads of Interstate 35 and Interstate 10, the city of Cibolo's website notes. The community is already home to dozens of industrial companies spanning heavy machinery, bulletproof glass, shopping carts, home theater seating, gaskets, sealants and plating, per the same city source. Aisin itself opened a 500,000-square-foot automatic transmission plant in Cibolo in 2019 that brought $400 million in investment and created 900 new jobs, according to a city of Cibolo report.
The real estate outlet The Real Deal has also noted that Aisin's $400 million AW Texas transmission plant opened in 2021, and that H-E-B launched its own $100 million e-commerce fulfillment center in Cibolo the year before that report published. Walmart, meanwhile, currently operates 38 stores in the San Antonio area and holds a 26.3% share of the local grocery market, trailing H-E-B's 49.5% share and 64 stores, per the Express-News.
A distribution center of this size typically employs hundreds of workers once operational. The Cibolo City Council had a public hearing scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on October 13 at City Hall, 200 South Main Street, to take public input on Project Theo, according to the City of Cibolo.
A Bigger Push Across Texas
The Cibolo project is part of a broader Walmart build-out in the state. The company has invested more than $2.5 billion remodeling stores throughout Texas over the past five years, the Express-News reports. Elsewhere, Walmart's corporate newsroom announced an expansion of its Baytown campus in 2022 with a new distribution center exceeding 1 million square feet, a project expected to create 300 additional permanent supply-chain jobs.
Nationally, Walmart reported fiscal year 2025 revenue of $681 billion and employs approximately 2.1 million associates worldwide, operating more than 10,750 stores and numerous e-commerce sites across 19 countries. The company reports roughly 270 million customers and members visit its stores and sites each week, according to its company profile cited by Texas Public Radio.
