Albertsons #4434 / Publix #1325
26841 S. Tamiami Trail, Bonita Springs, FL - Bonita Bay Plaza
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| Today's post is a presentation of Lee County retail |
It's been a while since I've written about a Southwestern Florida Albertsons store, so let's change that today! Situated between Fort Myers and Naples, Bonita Springs serves as part of the suburban bridge between those two more famous cities along Florida's Southwest Coast, but still boasts a pretty famous stretch of gulfside beachfront all of its own. As Southwest Florida began to experience a population boom in the 1990's, Bonita Springs managed to attract not one but two Albertsons stores before the company began its Floridian decline. Albertsons spent a lot of money building out stores in Southwest Florida in the late 1990's and early 2000's, an area that was mostly neglected by the chain for much of its first two decades in Florida. All but one of the Albertsons stores in Lee and Collier Counties was built before 1994, that exception being the 1970's-era #4313 in Fort Myers. Post-1994, Albertsons seemed to want to make up ground in this part of the state, building 10 additional Southwest Florida stores over the next decade. Bonita Spring's first Albertsons store, #4434 (which we'll be touring today), was one of the earlier contributions from Albertsons during that late-era store blitz of the region, and remains today as a decently interesting Publixsons too. Anyway, before we get into our tour, let's learn a little more about Albertsons' time here at Bonita Bay Plaza and how this store came to be:
Plans for an Albertsons store in Bonita Springs first came to light in Summer 1995, when it was announced that a new shopping center called Bonita Bay Plaza would be built at the northeastern corner of US 41 (Tamiami Trail) and West Terry Street (the main road into downtown Bonita Springs). Following the success of the Center of Bonita shopping center a mile to the south of the Bonita Bay site (which featured anchor tenants Kmart, Publix, and Bealls), developers were quite keen on bringing yet more retail to booming Bonita Springs.
Featuring three anchor tenants upon its inception - Albertsons, Target, and an "unnamed junior anchor" (which was later revealed to be OfficeMax), Bonita Bay Plaza would be another retail destination for the area. Due to the way the shopping center was conceived as a "phased" development, the developer behind the Bonita Bay project pushed to get the center's grocery anchor built first so "the food store can mature, the area can grow, and more people can come to that market, which will support the larger stores that will grow in that center." As such, Albertsons was the first building to rise out of the ground at Bonita Bay, with construction on the new store starting not long after the plans for the shopping center were revealed in late 1995.
The article above is a continuation of the pervious one, and goes into a little more detail on retail site selection theory and the data used to determine where to place a grocery store. It's an interesting read if you're into learning a little more on the "why" part of where stores are built and some of the determining factors in such a decision (and how data analytics were becoming more commonplace in such decisions as new software was developed in the late 1990's, replacing a lot of old-fashioned "buy some land and hope it's good" tactics).
The construction of Bonita Spring's first Albertsons was pretty uneventful - no protests or angry neighbors here that I found evidence of - and the store opened as expected in October 1996 as the first anchor of Bonita Bay Plaza. Target would join Albertsons in March 1998 at the other end of the strip, with a row of stores anchored by OfficeMax joining Albertsons and Target later in 1998, completing Bonita Bay.
From the road, here's a look at all three of Bonita Bay's original anchors in action on the road sign, as seen in this old real estate listing photo I found.
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| Photo courtesy of the Lee County Property Appraiser |
Albertsons #4434 was a really nice store architecturally, with all the arches along the exterior.
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| Photo courtesy of the Lee County Property Appraiser |
#4434 took a lot of the exterior design cues more common with the later Grocery Palace-era Albertsons stores (such as the arches) and combined it with the soon-to-be-retired mid-1990's interior design (complete with the Blue and Gray Market interior, which looked somewhat dated for 1996 as well). This was probably one of the last Albertsons stores to open with Blue and Gray Market considering its late 1996 opening, as 1997 would usher in a slightly modified store design that was configured with Blue and Green Awnings in mind.
Albertsons had a good 12-year run at Bonita Bay Plaza until it was included as one of the 49 Floridian Albertsons stores sold to Publix that year. Albertsons #4434 would remain open until August 2008, at which point it would begin its conversion into a Publix.
While the sale to Publix marked the end of this Albertsons store, that transaction wouldn't leave Bonita Springs without an Albertsons. The newer Bonita Springs store (#4483) on the other side of town was spared from that transaction, however, it wasn't much of a consolation - #4483 ended up closing a year later in 2009 when Albertsons shuttered its last two stores in Southwestern Florida (that other holdout being #4478 in Estero).
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| Photo courtesy of the Lee County Property Appraiser |
Publix reopened this former Albertsons store in rather speedy fashion, with the new Publix #1325 celebrating its grand opening on November 20, 2008. While there was already an existing Publix a mile to the south of here at the Center of Bonita (store #365) and another 2.5 miles to the north (store #604), store #1325 was a totally new location for Publix and did not act as a replacement for either of those older stores nearby (even though #365 was certainly a contender for replacement at the time, but ended up lasting until 2014 when a replacement was built within Center of Bonita).
As typical with a conversion as fast at this one, Publix didn't do much to the building besides cheaply install some Classy Market 2.0 paint and signs over Albertsons' Blue and Gray Market decor (as can be seen in the photo above), install new floor tiles, and restock the shelves.
The photo on the top right of the article above also shows us that Publix kept Albertsons' funky mid-1990's layout with the sideways aisles, as we can see the greeting cards ending at the row of frozen food coolers in the center of the store. We'll talk more about that original layout in a little bit, which Publix did modify a bit when this store got a much more thorough remodel to Classy Market 3.0/Sienna in the mid-2010's, but not in the way you'd probably expect...
All that explanation brings us to today, where we find a very nice Publixsons store in a very nice former Albertsons building.
As we saw in that 2008 property appraiser photo of this Publix just prior to its opening, Publix painted this store a dark brown upon taking it over, a common repaint scheme for these old Albertsons buildings at the time. In the years since Publix repainted this store again, bringing back that very Albertsons-y beige with white trim look, which I quite like just because it makes these buildings look more original.
Like most mid-1990's Albertsons stores, a large cartwell was built just outside the entrance.
The arched windows look really nice in here, and look much better than the more common design.
We enter the store through these doors, which Publix installed during the Classy Market 3.0/Sienna remodel to replace Albertsons' swinging ones (which can be seen in the 2008 Publix photo as well).
Publix dumped a lot of money into this store during the Classy Market 3.0/Sienna remodel, doing the typical modifications to the service departments to make them more Publix-like in design, installing new lighting, reconfiguring the salesfloor to the new layout, and also building this new Floral department next to the front doors. Albertsons used to have floral on the other end of the check lanes near the wine and beer alcove, with Publix carving this new Floral department out of some unused space from Albertsons' rather large bakery configuration.
Even with that little bit of space lost to floral, Publix still has its standard bakery setup here in the store's front left corner, reimagining the bakery space Albertsons once had here.
Turning around from the bakery, here's a look over the store's "grand aisle", comprised of produce before we transition into the deli at the very back of the store.
Here's an opposite perspective from that last photo, looking from the edge of the deli department back toward the bakery.
Spanning most of the depth of this store, the produce department in these style Publixsons stores always come across as quite large, even though the selection seems to be about the same as you'd find in most other Publix stores. I guess it's just all about visual perspective in these buildings.
In the back left corner of the building is the deli. While still in its original Albertsons placement, Publix made some modifications to this space, but not as many as they did elsewhere in the store.
Stepping into the back aisle, we see more evidence of the lack of major modifications to the deli as the ceiling still juts out from the back wall in the same trapezoidal style Albertsons used. While Publix typically puts a lot of effort into rebuilding the bakery and pharmacy spaces in these old Albertsons stores, the delis (for some reason) get much less attention during those larger-scale remodels.
Leaving the grand aisle, we'll turn our attention to the store's back wall, home to dairy.
From the back wall, we'll begin to loop around through the grocery aisles, starting with this look down aisle 2.
Back up front, here's a look across the front end toward the wine department, denoted by the maroon wall in the background. This store had a vary large front end as well, with 10 regular check lanes spanning the front of the store (which is a lot for Publix).
The Publix-issued lighting this store got in the 2010's remodel really changes the entire feel of one of these mid-1990's Albertsons stores. The original fluorescent strip lights make these stores really bright, while Publix's lights make the store a touch darker.
The Dairy signage finally appears about halfway down the store's back wall, with the meat coolers continuing past the cutout to the stockroom door (even though the wall over the meat coolers continues the dairy color scheme).
Making our way to the center of the salesfloor we find the frozen foods department, comprising aisles 8 and 9 in here.
I'd have to imagine all these coolers are from the mid-2010's remodel (as they look fairly modern), as Publix did some major reconfiguration of this area during that time.
Moving along to aisle 10, we find the interesting placement of dairy overflow in this grocery aisle, with cheeses and lunchmeats in that cooler to my left. While Publix was actually the one who installed that meat and cheese cooler in this aisle (using that to replace a row of traditional frozen foods coolers from when Albertsons was here), it was in roughly this area where Albertsons' odd 1990's layout began to shine. Right around here the grocery aisles would have turned 90 degrees to run parallel to the front wall, roughly dividing the store into two zones - one for grocery (the traditional aisles) and one for non-foods, household goods, and health and beauty (the perpendicular aisles). While that sounds a bit strange, most modern Walmart Neighborhood Markets are designed in a very similar way. However, if that description is still a bit confusing, a map can clear it up, right? Well, lucky enough for everyone, I actually found a map of that old Albertsons layout:
While the above map was published to show off a new Albertsons store in Omaha, the Albertsons stores in Florida from the same era were basically the same (the only difference being the liquor aisles would have been home to only beer and wine here, and that the store we're touring right now is actually a mirror image of the diagram above). Publix kept this layout to some degree in most of the cheaply converted stores of this style upon opening, but wiped away most traces of it in later remodels for a traditional design with all the aisles running perpendicular to the front wall (with a few exceptions - see here and here). As we'll see in just a little bit too, while Publix dumped much more money into this former Albertsons store compared to those two linked examples, this store actually kept a small portion of the original Albertsons layout as well, but in a much different way than we saw at those other stores.
Continuing along from aisle 10, aisles 11, 12, and 13 run perpendicular to the front of the store as you'd expect to find in most supermarkets. As we pass those aisles, we find the meat and seafood counter in the store's back right corner, a placement and design that also hails from Albertsons. However, as we leave meat and seafood and turn the corner into aisle 14, that we're some of this store's past begins to shine a tiny bit:
Instead of turning all the grocery aisles to run perpendicular to the front of the store, Publix stopped at aisle 14, leaving behind a whole stretch of parallel aisles along the right side of the store by the pharmacy in a similar (but stunted) arrangement to Albertsons. Outside of cleaning, pet, and paper products (which were in the main grocery aisles to my right), Publix left all the remaining non-food items to be stored in these parallel aisles by the pharmacy. I believe Publix kept this design because they never moved the pharmacy to the front right corner where wine and beer is. Had Publix done that in the 2010's remodel the rest of the aisles probably would have been straightened, but with the pharmacy still halfway down the right wall, that would have made things cramped for the pharmacy, so part of the old layout was preserved.
Speaking of the pharmacy, there it is peeking out from behind the rows of short aisles too.
Cosmetics are still located under the lower ceiling to the left of the pharmacy counter, the same way Albertsons' intended per the map a few photos back. Publix's clearance rack also crashes this photo too, tucked away back here between cosmetics and the meat and seafood counter.
While I mentioned earlier that Publix likes to rebuild the pharmacies in these old Albertsons stores to their design, that never happened in this store even with all the other work done elsewhere. I have no idea why Publix suddenly went cheap when remodeling this side of the store, but not moving the pharmacy did allow this store to keep part of its original layout in-tact.
Moving along to the store's front right corner, we find beer and wine in this little alcove.
The store's wine selection took up most of the space in the alcove, with the beer located in a cooler placed along the front wall.
Returning to the front end, here's another look across at the store's 10 check lanes.
Another quirk about this store was that its customer service desk was never relocated from the front wall. While it appears I never took a photo of it, customer service was located behind me from this viewpoint (and the counter's sign is also visible in the previous photo of the front end as well).
Back outside, we're looking in the opposite direction of the cartwell down the front walkway, looking toward the liquor store.
Publix kept the liquor store's original doors from Albertsons, and the liquor store's interior still has that vague Albertsons feel to it too.
From the parking lot, here's a look at the liquor store's facade, which matches the arched design of the main store's exterior.
While that wraps up our tour of former Albertsons #4434, we'll stay at Bonita Bay plaza for just a little bit longer, as there's a bit of backstory to share about the plaza's other anchor a few doors down: Target.
Bridging a gap between its existing stores in Naples and Fort Myers, the new Bonita Springs Target (#T-1123) was an exciting arrival for the folks living in Bonita Springs. While Bonita Springs had a Kmart since 1988, the arrival of Target to town brought a new shopping option to the area upon its opening on March 8, 1998. (And interestingly, to this day, Bonita Springs lacks a Walmart - the closest Walmart to Bonita Springs is further up US 41 in Estero).
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| Photo courtesy of the Lee County Property Appraiser |
While the people living in the area were excited for Target's arrival, the opening of the new Bonita Springs store was a big occasion for Target as well. T-1123 marked the debut of a new prototype for the chain, which featured such new offerings like "a separate customer service room, a food market, and a one-hour photo service". Most likely the Bonita Springs Target looked quite similar to the famous Horn Lake Target store for its entire time in operation, featuring the same "right aligned" layout and neon wall decor too.
However, by the late 2000's, Target continued to build up its presence in the area, including the construction of two new Super Targets in nearby Estero and North Naples. From the article above, it appears those two new stores stole much of the business from this older store, leading to its closure on January 29, 2011. There had been some talk that the new Estero Super Target built at the massive Coconut Point shopping center was supposed to be a direct replacement for the Bonita Springs Target when it opened on March 5, 2008 (almost exactly 10 years to the date of the Bonita Springs store's opening), but that plan never materialized, letting the Bonita Springs store live on for another 3 years in the end.
The closure of the Target store left a large void at Bonita Bay Plaza to fill, with lots of uncertainly about who could possibly fill such a large building.
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| Photo courtesy of the Lee County Property Appraiser |
While this building could have been a way for Walmart to fill their coverage gap the area (and wouldn't have been the first time the company found a way to build a Supercenter within the walls of an old Target - yes, that GSV image twists my mind too), Walmart didn't bite, and instead this building stood vacant until February 2014 when it became, of all things, a Rural King.
The Bonita Springs Rural King is a bit of an anomaly for the chain. Serving as the chain's third location in Florida when it opened, it's still the company's southernmost store, with most other Floridian Rural Kings clustered near and north of Orlando. The next closest Rural King to Bonita Springs is in Lake Wales - 135 miles away. Like many of the other areas in Florida with Rural King stores, this old Target in Bonita Springs isn't in a rural area or near a rural area either - it's quite busy and suburban all around this store until you get to places like Rural Estates east of Naples.
Rural King did a fairly cheap remodel to this old Target building, only performing small modifications (like ripping out the old tile floors and the guest service room) but leaving most of the building alone. Rural King even left Target's original entryway doors in-tact too, however, after a stolen car drove through the doors in November 2015 as part of an attempted burglary effort, the original doors were replaced with the generic sliding doors we see today.
While all the other doors were replaced, the old door that would have led into the guest service room was left behind. Since the guest service room was ripped out by Rural King, this door is no longer used, and as such was left here frozen in time behind pallets of food.
For those unfamiliar with Rural King, it's pretty much the same concept as a store like Tractor Supply, but bigger. As such, Rural King has larger clothing and tool departments (for example), a full service gun sales counter, and a decent sized grocery department too (seen here). The grocery department was located along the store's right side wall, located in the old guest service room and expanding out into the start of the old clothing department.
What would have been a view into the women's clothing department when Target was here has now been replaced by grocery aisles, a gun counter, and fishing gear - talk about polar opposites!
The back right corner of the store was home to pet supplies, with this view looking across the back of the store toward tools. It was right after I took this photo when a page came over the intercom that stated (something to the effect of) "Security scan in the pet department." At the time, the only two people in the pet department were myself and an employee stocking a shelf, so after hearing that, I began to think to myself "Oh great, this will be fun, unless that employee was stuffing cans of dog food down her pants while I wasn't looking..."
One thing I learned about Rural King during this visit (my very first to a Rural King) is that they go quite a bit overboard when it comes to loss prevention tactics. As you can see, those little poles coming down from the ceiling all over the place are security cameras, and management was very generous about placing signs just about everywhere in the store that you are under surveillance and to not steal (and boy, they weren't kidding that shoppers were being watched - you don't even have to be stealing for that!). At the front of the store is a giant board with a tally of all the shoplifters the store has caught so far that year (with pictures of the people they caught from surveillance too), and all purchases are placed in clear bags (a bag designed so you can't walk back into the store and fill it with more stuff when you're done). Honestly, it kind of makes you afraid to take any of the free popcorn Rural King offers at the front of the store, thinking they're going to come after you for grabbing a bag of that! Anyway, on this particular day the store's bored security guard must have been trying very hard to find some excitement on his multitude of camera angles as people strolled the store this particular morning, and a guy walking around taking pictures must have been just the thing he needed.
Making our way to the store's left actionway near the tools, we spy Target's old pharmacy counter in the distance on the front wall, also left to die in a permanently closed position - I don't think they make a pill to cure this problem! It was right after I took this picture I decided to loop back around and check out one of the aisles when I noticed a guy dressed in all black poking out of an aisle, watching what I was doing. Oh fun, oh fun...
I continued on, waiting for my friend to approach me and say something as I mulled stories to tell him in my mind, but he was apparently taking his time trying to figure me out. Knowing I was being followed, I at least wanted a photo of the old pharmacy counter now acting as a weedwhacker display if nothing else before I left, so I got my photo and began to zigzag through a few more aisles waiting for the inevitable.
However, the security guard at this store just kept following me, and was doing a very poor job of it too may I add, as he was making it very obvious he was watching me (which I guess could have been intentional trying to spook me, but I don't know). Anyway, I wasn't in the mood for a confrontation, so I began to meander my way back to the front to pay for the few things in my cart.
As I made my way back to the front, the security guy eventually disappeared, so I rushed a few more photos as I made my way to the cashier.
The above photo also looks down one of the center aisles, with the right side wall off in the distance. Rural King's clothing department is straight ahead in the location where Target's jewelry counter and accessories would have been located, backing up into the old children's clothing department too. All those yellow and blue signs you see taped to the shelves were some of the many, many examples of "you are under surveillance" and "shoplifters will be prosecuted" signs this store had out too.
I think I looped around to the back of the store for this photo, looking toward the back left corner of the building.
As I approached the check lanes, I once again saw my friend the security guard standing at the service desk, talking to the lady there (who was also acting as the lone cashier, the two probably chatting about the crazy guy taking pictures). The cashier didn't say anything to me even after I said "Good Morning" to her, and the security guy disappeared into his office as I approached. No one ever confronted me while here (although I was expecting it), and I left with my clear bag of items and went about my day.
So that was my first Rural King experience, which thankfully ended on a rather anti-climactic note, but was still not a great way to start off my day after driving all the way out here! Anyway, the rest of the day went smoothly, and we'll wrap up this post by looking back at the old Target building from the parking lot. From here, we can also see part of the former OfficeMax space to its right, now home to a furniture store.
And before getting into the satellite imagery, here's a look back at the old Albertsons too. From the ground, let's jump up to the sky and start with the Bird's Eye satellite images, courtesy of Bing Maps:
Front
Right Side
Back
Left Side
And now some historic aerial imagery, courtesy of Google Earth:
Former Albertsons #4434 and Former Target #T-1123 - 2024 (The old Target is at the top and Albertsons is at the bottom)
Former Albertsons #4434 - 2024 - Closeup of just the old Albertsons now
Former Albertsons #4434 - 2010
Albertsons #4434 - 2007
Albertsons #4434 - 1999
Future Albertsons #4434 - 1995
I'll finish this post with a parting shot of former Albertsons #4434, literally taken as I was driving out of the parking lot too. For our next post, we'll be sticking around Southwest Florida for a very interesting guest post about quite the famous supermarket subject in this area. I promise that will be a fun post, so be sure to come back for that in two weeks!
So until the next post (well, post after next technically),
The Albertsons Florida Blogger
