Former Albertsons #4334 - Brandon, FL

 

Albertsons #4334 / Super Saver #1526 / Aldi #42

610 East Brandon Blvd., Brandon, FL

Today's post is a presentation of Hillsborough County retail

     As I was looking through my archives trying to decide upon what store to write about in honor of the blog's 11th anniversary, I had a few possibilities. While you may think after so long I've dried up most of the super exciting former Albertsons content there is to see across Florida (like we've seen on anniversaries past), I may still have a few tricks up my sleeve for the future. However, this year, I've decided to mark the occasion with a store slightly more symbolic of what we've seen transpire across Florida in 2024, with some Grocery Palace remnants thrown in for good measure too. As we've seen, 2024 was the year of Aldi, following the completion of the company's acquisition of Southeastern Grocers this past March. In the months that followed we began to see the answer to our question of "Why would Aldi buy SEG?", a seemingly perplexing mismatch in the grocery world from the surface. Sadly, while a Winn-Dixie with a store-within-a-store "Aldi department" would have been interesting to see (and probably a success), Aldi turned out to be nothing more than a vulture circling easy prey as the company set its sights on opening 800 new stores over the next 4 years. All Aldi wanted was Winn-Dixie's real estate, seeing Florida's last traditional non-Publix supermarket chain as an easy way to open more stores at the expense of another. The former Albertsons we'll be seeing today somewhat encapsulates what a lot of Winn-Dixie stores will look like come 2025 - an Aldi in one half of the building, with an empty space on the other (which will hopefully not still be empty 15 years later, like what we're about to see here in Brandon). With Aldi being the talk of the year due to their purchase of Winn-Dixie, I thought this would be an interesting store to look at today while we also get an interesting glimpse into Albertsons' past, including Albertsons' short lived foray into discount grocery retailing. While this introduction hasn't had the cheeriest tone, let's change that a bit as we begin to learn more about Albertsons' time in Brandon, starting back at the beginning in the late 1970's:

     Talk of Albertsons opening a new store in Brandon appeared as early as the summer of 1977. A number of property owners with land at the northeastern corner of Kingsway Road and State Route 60 in Brandon began receiving letters around that time from a Mr. Wilbur Brantley, a local realtor who expressed interest in buying properties on this corner to assemble a lot large enough for a "new commercial development". Per reports from other local businessmen and property owners who responded to Mr. Brantley, it was stated that the "new commercial development" was an Albertsons, although Albertsons' regional office in Orlando would neither confirm nor deny the claims.

     In January 1978, Mr. Brantley officially announced to the press that his new commercial development was indeed a new Albertsons store, and that he was acting as an agent for Albertsons to acquire a number of older homes and a funeral parlor that would be demolished for the new supermarket. While Albertsons had all the contracts signed by the property owners to complete the deal, the actual sale of the land would not be completed until the county approved a rezoning of the property to allow the construction of the new supermarket with an attached liquor store. As you can probably expect from an Albertsons rezoning request, there were a few bumps in the road before construction could actually commence:

     Albertsons submitted a rezoning request to the Hillsborough County commissioners in April 1978. The public hearing was scheduled for April 28, 1978, with the request to be formally brought before the commissioners for a vote in May. However, due to one of the commissioners falling ill before the May meeting, the formal vote was delayed to July 10, 1978.

     After announcing their rezoning request, the thought of a new Albertsons store at Kingsway Road and Route 60 stirred the ire of folks associated with Yates Elementary School, located two blocks north of the proposed Albertsons site. The Yates Elementary PTA voted to start a petition drive against the rezoning of the property for the new supermarket, with concerns stemming from the increase and cars and trucks coming in and out of the new Albertsons while children were walking to and from school. The inclusion of a new liquor store was also noted as a criticism of the project by the PTA, even though the liquor store was far enough away from the school per local zoning rules.

     As a means to appease the PTA, Albertsons said they would install new crosswalks and a new traffic light at the intersection of Ridgewood Avenue and Route 60 (located just east of the site) to make it easier for the children walking to school to cross the highway. However, this wasn't enough to fend off the PTA, who still pushed forward with their mission to get the rezoning entirely blocked by the county.

     The Yates Elementary PTA gathered 1,751 signatures of those opposed to the new Albertsons store. While the Hillsborough County planning commissioners originally sided with the PTA and were going to recommend the county reject the supermarket's request for rezoning, a last minute resubmission of modified site plans from Albertsons managed to sway the planning commission's decision to recommend approval from the county.

     After two hours of heated back and forth with members of the Yates Elementary PTA at the July 25, 1978 county commission meeting, the commissioners approved Albertsons' rezoning request in a 4-1 vote, paving the way for construction to begin. The commission felt that Albertsons' agreement to install the new traffic light at Ridgewood Avenue and make other pedestrian improvements for the children walking to school were more than adequate to address the PTA's safety concerns. Even with a vote in their favor, to calm some of the remaining pressure from the PTA about the new store, Albertsons also pulled their request to allow the sale of liquor. By pulling the liquor license request, that meant store #4334 opened without a liquor store, a similar strategy Albertsons had to use to appease a nearby school in the quest to opening store #4321 in Tampa.

     Following the rezoning battle, Albertsons was able to begin clearing the site in November 1978, with plans to open the new store a few months later in July 1979.

     In the above photo from March 1979, we can see the walls of the new Albertsons store being lifted up by a crane. These "Skaggs" model Albertsons stores were constructed out of pre-formed concrete panels for easy building, panels which were later textured in their signature river rock siding.

     The new Brandon Albertsons opened on schedule on July 11, 1979, featuring a plethora of celebratory specials seen in the advertisement above. At the grand opening of your new Brandon Albertsons, you could have picked up some deals on Janet Lee bread, Duracell batteries, and even assorted chipped meats. However, if you needed a quick dinner and weren't in the mood for chipped meats, Albertsons also had 12" deli pizzas you could take home - quite the innovative deli offering for 1979!

     While Albertsons had to forgo a liquor license to appease the nearby PTA to get this store built, Albertsons didn't wait long to try again to bring full liquor sales to this location. Even without the full liquor license, store #4334 was still allowed to sell beer per the local codes, but could not sell wine or hard liquor. In September 1980, Albertsons reached out to the commissioners for a liquor license and managed to gain the commission's approval for the request. The request was approved on the basis that liquor would only make up a small fraction of Albertsons' total sales, in addition to it being unfair to disallow liquor sales at Albertsons when other stores nearby already sell liquor. With the liquor license now in hand, store #4334 would offer the same product selection as most other Albertsons stores throughout Florida.

     An interesting little tidbit I found from Albertsons #4334's history involved one of the deli employees giving birth right in the store in March 1990. After beginning to experience signs of labor while slicing a customer's deli order, employee Lillie Mae Guillory managed to make it to the time clock to punch out, intending to drive herself to the hospital. However, her baby had different plans, and Lillie ended up giving birth to her daughter in the store's computer room with the help of the assistant manager and one of the cashiers, while the another assistant manager ran across the street to the fire station for additional help from the paramedics. While it was suggested that she name her daughter "Alberta" in honor of Albertsons, the article makes it sound like the new mom had different plans as far as choice of name went, but that was certainly an interesting day for this store!

     Based on Albertsons' remodel schedule of the time, store #4334 most likely remodeled for the first time around 1989-1990, possibly receiving the "Colorful Transition Market" decor (although I don't know for sure). While I'm a bit unclear on that first remodel, I do know this store received an extensive remodel to Grocery Palace in late 2000, where the store's facade was rebuilt and the interior was completely refigured to the Grocery Palace design. However, 5 years after that extensive remodel, Albertsons decided to try something new here in Brandon yet again:

     In early 2005, store #4334 was selected as one of the 11 underperforming Albertsons locations in Florida to be converted to the company's new Super Saver discount grocery brand, which were to be run by a subsidiary of Albertsons named Extreme, Inc. The Brandon location would be one of two stores in the Tampa Bay area chosen for conversion, the other being store #4445 in Tampa. Like most attempts by large grocery chains at running a "discount" concept, Super Saver stores would feature a smaller selection of groceries presented warehouse-style on metal racks, with frills like service bakeries and delis removed in favor of pre-packaged offerings. Shoppers would also have to bag their own groceries too, Aldi style.

     Albertsons #4334 officially became Super Saver #1526 on March 18, 2005, following a brief closure to remodel and refixture the former Albertsons space. The new Super Saver stores were designed to look and feel cheaper than the Albertsons stores they replaced, featuring bright green and yellow banner signs with phrases like "Super Saver means Low Prices" shouting at you from the walls. However, since these conversions were rather cheap, a lot of pieces from the old Albertsons decor were left behind in these stores, leaving some interesting repaints of Blue and Gray Market, Grocery Palace, etc. behind the yellow banners Super Saver used for signage.

     In addition to reducing selection (cutting SKU counts from 40,000 items at the average Albertsons to 18,000 at Super Saver) to streamline selection and reduce prices, Super Saver (like most other discount store concepts) focused heavily on store brand merchandise instead of name brands. While some name brand products were mixed in, most of the merchandise in the store was ACME brand. Instead of using the Albertsons name on store brand products, products from Albertsons' Philadelphia-based supermarket chain ACME were used at Super Saver instead. While I don't know why ACME was specifically chosen to be Super Saver's house brand over Albertsons-labeled products, it was a fitting choice, as Albertsons acquired the Super Save name from ACME (Super Saver was ACME's discount brand in the 1970's).

     The article from the Tampa Tribune about Super Saver featured a few interior and exterior photos of the N. Florida Avenue Super Saver (former Albertsons #4445), giving us a quick glimpse at what the inside of one of these stores looked like (and yes, I used these clippings in my post about #4445 too, but why not use them again, especially since I didn't have any luck finding photos of the Brandon Super Saver while it was open).

     Upon the breakup of Albertsons in 2006, the relatively new Super Saver chain was mostly shut down as it had yet to prove itself as a profitable venture. All 11 of the Floridian Super Saver stores, just barely a year old, were closed by the summer of 2006.

     For this former Super Saver store, it didn't take long before it became home to another chain that wanted to sell discount groceries, but this time it was a chain that had much more experience with discount groceries than Albertsons. Aldi took over the former Brandon Super Saver in 2008, cutting this building in half to fit Aldi's fairly cookie-cutter 20,000 square foot store design. Aldi took over the majority of the left side of the building except for a small piece of the front left corner where the old liquor store was, dividing the building as such:

     I managed to find this diagram of Aldi's subdivision in a real estate listing for the empty right half of the building, which has been sitting empty since Aldi arrived in 2008. I don't know what's been keeping that half of the building empty for so long, as this is a fairly busy Aldi in a busy part of town. Also on the diagram is the portion of the front left corner Aldi doesn't use, which seems to be under Aldi's control and left to rot as a time capsule into Albertsons' past.

     To start things off, we'll begin by taking a quick walk through Aldi. Aldi occupies the portion of the old Albertsons where Frozen foods and most of the grocery aisles used to be post-Grocery Palace remodel, with the empty half containing the former fresh departments (produce, bakery, deli, etc.) and the pharmacy island.

     Stepping inside, we find a pretty typical modern Aldi. As is usual with Aldi's current layout, produce is the first department you encounter entering the store.

     Wine and beer are located just past the produce coolers on the left wall. In newer stores and more recent remodels from the 2020's, Aldi puts the wine and beer in fancier lit shelving units that come off as being a bit classier than the plain shelves we see in this store.

     Being an Aldi from the late 2000's, this store still has the older yellow ceramic floor tiles Aldi had used since at least the 1990's, one of the few fragments from Aldi's old decor that survived the remodel sweeps of the late 2010's and early 2020's to the "classier" new decor.

     As you'd suspect, nothing from Albertsons remains in the Aldi half of the building. Aldi is always thorough with their interior conversions, and has been for as long as they've been in Florida.     

     The back wall of the store is home to refrigerated goods and dairy. When Albertsons was here, the Meat & Seafood counter would have been in this general area as well, partially if not all within the current Aldi half of the building.

     The coolers wrap around to the right side wall that partitions Aldi from the empty half of the former Albertsons, with frozen foods visible at the end of this aisle near the check lanes.

     A quick look at the front end gives us a glimpse of 3 of Aldi's 6 checkout lanes, the three furthest from the door. While that's all I have from inside Aldi, things get much more interesting as we head back outside:

     Aldi's cart corral ends at the tower that marked Albertsons former main entrance. Albertsons would have had an exit door located in the general area of Aldi's cart corral, which was closed off when Aldi moved in.

     As part of this store's Grocery Palace remodel in 2000, the exterior was completely rebuilt to look like a modern Albertsons store from the time. A towering entryway was constructed, and the entrances were consolidated to the right side of the building where the new grand aisle was constructed.

     Even having operated as a Super Saver for a year, many elements from Albertsons survived that remodel, including most of the decals around the entrance. The "ENTER" decal on the door is a classic Albertsons element that really takes me back!

     During the conversion to Super Saver, the store's pharmacy was closed. Following the pharmacy's closure someone (made a poor attempt at) scraping the pharmacy hours off the glass, leaving the scars from that still visible to this day. Also, Albertsons' store hours and policy decals were swapped out, changing from Albertsons blue to Super Saver red. However, other than the color, the decals are mostly identical.

     Being that a number of original Albertsons decals are still on the doors, what can possibly be visible through the glass?...

     …A Super Saver-ified version of Grocery Palace, that's what! When this store converted to Super Saver, the Grocery Palace decor was repainted with red accents to match Super Saver's logo. Repainted Grocery Palace paired with Super Saver's cheap yellow canvas banner signs must have been a strange juxtaposition!

     In front of us was the old pharmacy/floral island, which was unceremoniously cut in half when Aldi moved in. Sadly, the famous Grocery Palace pharmacy island (and the lack of lighting in here) prevented me from seeing what else remained on the walls elsewhere in this half of the building, and how other elements of the decor were modified in the Super Saver era. As such, these were the only two pictures I was able to get of the interior through the old entrance door. We'll just have to imagine what the rest of the decor looked like I suppose, although I'm sure pieces of the deli, produce, and bakery decor are still preserved behind that island.

     To the right of the main entrance, a small piece of the original 1970's facade was preserved, with three river rock panels still looking good to this day.

     Looking down the right side of the building, while a bit obstructed by the shadows from the large oak tree, the original 1970's river rock wall panels were also preserved on this side of the building. Even after all the work done in 2000, this side of the building was never touched during the Grocery Palace remodel.

     Albertsons chose a very stately, boxy design for this store post-remodel, and I think it really dressed up this older store quite well.

     All of the paint colors you see on the right side of the building also date back to Albertsons' remodel in 2000, and haven't been modified since by either Super Saver or Aldi. The blue tiles on the columns to each side of the entrance are a very Albertsons-esque trait too.

     As I mentioned before, Aldi left an unused pocket at the front left corner of the building - let's go around the corner and check that out:

     While many of Albertsons' remodels to these 1970's buildings in the late 1990's and early 2000's came at the expense of the side entrance (either due to a pharmacy relocation or liquor store expansion), this store kept its original 1970's side entrance design all the way to the end. Since Grocery Palace stores had the pharmacy in the front island and the liquor store stayed put, all of this was able to stay as it was. Albertsons dressed up the liquor store and side facade in the remodel, but otherwise this is classic 1970's Albertsons we see here.

     The two doors closest to the front of the building are the side entrance and exit, with the set of doors further down going into the liquor store. I'd have to imagine Albertsons built this store with the liquor space in-tact even if they had to forfeit the liquor license for the first year, leaving it in the plans knowing they would try again to get the license and make use of the space.

     While the exit door was boarded over, the side entrance door wasn't. The old swinging door still had its original "ENTER" decal like we saw on the front door, and like we also saw up front, some interesting pieces from the past are lurking behind the glass:

     To my left is the wall that partitioned the liquor store from the main store, with an employee door visible allowing for an interior passage between the two spaces. Around the employee door we also see some pieces of Albertsons' wood paneling and Super Saver's red painted trim too. In front of me is Aldi's partition which created this awkward space, as well as a random stripped security monitor bracket.

     It's a little foggy, but turning the camera to the right, we can see the front wall and what appears to be the window into the old video rental department. The cubby above the window is what makes me think that was the video rental area, as that looks like it once housed the row of CRT monitors which would play movie previews on them.

     That was all I could see through the side entrance door, so let's move over to the liquor store to see what remnants we can find in there:

     The old Grocery Palace liquor store decor was preserved on the wall, with scars underneath from where the shelves and coolers were ripped out. Super Saver kept the liquor stores operational from what I understand, and I don't think much changed about the liquor store operations under Super Saver compared to Albertsons besides the name.

     With a random pocket in the front left corner of the building under their control, Aldi should consider putting that space to use as a freestanding Winn-Dixie liquor store. A number of the Winn-Dixies converting to Aldi will have their liquor stores retained as-is, even once the Aldi stores next door begin to open. If Aldi thinks Winn-Dixie's real estate and liquor licenses are the only things worth keeping alive, why not expand the Winn-Dixie standalone liquor concept to more existing Aldi stores if they have the space, like they do here? I know it will never happen as Aldi seems very unwilling to try bold new things like that, but there are so many things Aldi could have done with Winn-Dixie that could have lead to creative innovation and growth for both chains compared to the the current course of killing Winn-Dixie for Aldi's gain.

     At the back left of the building was this door, which doesn't appear to be original to me. I'd have to guess this door was installed when Aldi moved in, as I believe their space is somehow accessible through it. I tried looking through the door and the windows and all were blacked out, so I don't know what was actually behind the glass.

     With that photo completing my ground coverage of this store, we'll move on to satellite imagery. Before we start looking at the Bird's Eye aerial images, I had this interesting sight pop up after I plugged this store's address into Bing Maps to grab the aerials:

     20 years after it closed, Bing Maps still returns "Albertsons" as the search result when you type in the address "610 East Brandon Blvd., Brandon, FL". Thankfully Albertsons is marked as permanently closed, but still, that's a long time for a closed store to still be popping up in their system!

     Anyway, that aside, here are the Bird's Eye aerial images:

Front

Right Side

Back

Left Side

     And now for some historic aerial images, courtesy of Google Earth and historicaerials.com:

Former Albertsons #4334 - 2023

Former Albertsons #4334 - 2009

Former Albertsons #4334 - 2008 - Aldi had yet to move in.

Super Saver #1526 - 2006

Albertsons #4334 - 2002

Albertsons #4334 - 1995 - The pre-Grocery Palace look of the building.

Albertsons #4334 - 1982

Future Albertsons #4334 - 1969

Photo courtesy of a really old real estate listing

     I hope you enjoyed this Albertsons version of what 80 (and counting) Winn-Dixie and Harvey's stores will look like come next year. After a rough 2024 for Floridian retail, I guess we'll have to see what 2025 will bring and if we get our answer to the question of "What will happen to the remaining Winn-Dixie stores Aldi won't convert?". That will probably be the looming question dominating 2025, alongside some additional questions like "What additional Winn-Dixie stores will convert to Aldi?", "What stores will Publix rebuild next?", and "Is the Albertsons Florida Blogger crazy enough to keep this blog going for a 12th year?" I only know the answer to one of those questions, and I will answer it by saying posting on AFB will resume on January 19, 2025, however, if I can get it done in time, there may be one additional post discussing some recent events going live on AFB between now and then. Other than that, I may write a little bit for MFR in the meantime as well, but we'll see what happens. Thanks for another great year everyone, and I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

So until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger