When Aldi Went to the Marketplace...

Planned Grant City / JCPenney / Winn-Dixie #609 / Aldi #XXX

802 US Highway 27 South, Avon Park, FL - Avon Square

Today's post is a presentation of Highlands County retail

     Oh, hey, by the way, while you're at the Marketplace, Aldi Winn-Dixie Marketplace...

     While that wasn't one of Winn-Dixie's biggest earworms of a jingle through the years (with this one being a good runner up to that title), we're going to take the advice from that late 1990's commercial and head over to the Marketplace today! While I wasn't intentionally planning this post to align as such, my visit to the Marketplace just so happens to align with The Sing Oil Blogger's recent "Marketplace Madness" series over on his namesake blog too - call this a "Marketplace Madness Bonus" if you will. After focusing quite a bit on remodels throughout the late 2010's and early 2020's, 10 stores remained in the chain with the once ubiquitous "Marketplace" decor of the 1990's when Winn-Dixie's sale to Aldi was finalized in early 2024. Seeing all that progress toward modernization made it even tougher to watch Aldi essentially turn back the clock as they slaughtered through the chain, taking brand new stores and nicely remodeled ones alongside some of the older stores too. To date, Aldi's involvement with Winn-Dixie brought about the demise of 5 of those 10 stores that remained with the Marketplace decor in early 2024, with today's post taking a look at one of those 5 that succumbed to Aldi's pillaging of the chain. On top of being one of the last few of these 1990's holdouts left in the mix, the Avon Park Winn-Dixie Marketplace also had a bit of a strange past lineage, which made this store a bit more interesting compared to one of its newbuild counterparts. We'll start off by talking about this building's unusual past before we take a look the vestiges of the 1990's that remained before this store closed for good on October 13, 2024, starting off by hearing the story of the rather sad origins of this very building:

     After experiencing a few construction issues that delayed its opening by a year, the new Avon Square shopping center marked the arrival of the first major shopping center to (the then quite small) town of Avon Park, located a few miles north of Sebring along US 27. The construction of Avon Square was a major win for the town, bringing a suite of new stores to the area such as Fabric King, Eagle Army-Navy, Eckerd, Winn-Dixie, and Grant City. While all the other stores in the plaza opened as intended by the end of 1975, Grant City's parent company W.T. Grant was running into financial troubles at that time. As such, W.T. Grant filed for bankruptcy in October 1975, the same time the new Avon Park Grant City was preparing to open. With a potential liquidation of the chain looming as part of the bankruptcy filing, Grant's ended up liquidating its partially-stocked Avon Park store before it held its grand opening in mid-November 1975. While I've heard stories of brand new stores opened mere months or even days before a fatal bankruptcy filing (see Grand Union Mega Save as a famous example of such), this was the first I've heard of a store holding a liquidation before it even opened!

     While the abandonment of Avon Square's largest anchor spot before it officially opened seemed like a huge blow to the new center, other chains appeared to be expressing interest in the site before Grant's even made the final call for a chain-wide liquidation. For Avon Park, this was a good sign, as other stores were seeing opportunity in the small town. After the total liquidation of Grant's as a whole was settled in the early months of 1976, it was announced that the former Grant's building in Avon Park would become home to a brand new JCPenney store - the first location for the chain in the greater Sebring area.

     After doing quite a bit of work to the old Grant's building ($2 million worth - and that was in 1970's monetary value too), the new Avon Park JCPenney opened on January 12, 1977, a little over a year after all the other stores in the plaza opened. 

     JCPenney remained at Avon Square until January 31, 1992, when the company closed this store in preparation for its move to the newly-built Lakeshore Mall in Sebring. Officials in Avon Park saw this move as a big hit to the city, as JCPenney's move coincided with rumors that the Avon Square Wal-Mart (built in the 1983 at the southern end of Avon Square) would relocate to North Sebring as well (an event which did happen in 1993, leaving two 54,000 square foot voids for the city to fill).

     On top of taking Avon Park's JCPenney, Lakeshore Mall also caused the relocation of Sebring's Kmart and Bealls stores, who also made the move from older buildings elsewhere to anchor the mall. Lakeshore Mall was positioned to reshape the retail landscape of Highlands County, and Avon Park was trying to come up with a plan for what to do with its large JCPenney (and Walmart) vacancies in spite of this shift in the local retail landscape.

     About 6 months after JCPenney made its move to the mall, it was announced that Winn-Dixie was expressing interest in taking over the old JCPenney building for one of its new Marketplace stores. Operating out of a 30,000 square foot building just to the south of the vacant JCPenney since Avon Square's inception in 1975, Winn-Dixie felt the time was right to offer a larger store with more modern services to the residents of Avon Park, and the JCPenney move appeared to be the perfect opportunity to do so.

     What started out as speculation in the Summer of 1992 became reality 2 years later on July 21, 1994, when Winn-Dixie completed its move a few doors down to open the new Avon Park Winn-Dixie Marketplace, featuring such amenities like a cheese shop, split deli and bakery, a pharmacy, video rentals, and more, as well as the chance to win a brand new 1994 Ford Ranger to a lucky grand opening shopper as well!

     Filling the entire 54,000 square foot expanse of the old JCPenney, the Avon Park Winn-Dixie was one of the largest stores in the chain when it opened, quite impressive for a town whose population only numbered around 8,000 residents at the time! A town that size isn't where you'd expect to find such a large prototype supermarket. Due to its size, Winn-Dixie filled this store with pretty much every amenity and item the chain carried at the time, with the store manager even quipping that "if you can't find a particular food item [here], they probably don't make it anymore."

     Melon bars, specialty cheese and wine, an old-time butcher shop, and fresh-squeezed juice - fancy! By this point, Avon Park had a Publix since 1987 (located next door to Avon Square in Highlands Plaza - scroll toward the end of the post at that link to take a look at what was left of it), and this new Marketplace was well positioned to give Publix a run for its money.

      However, by the time I visited this store in 2015 and again in 2020, all the glitz and glamor of melon bars and specialty cheese had been replaced by a sad mid-2000's "Marketplace Refresh" that removed most of those fancy features, replaced by a store that was screaming for a little love and attention from corporate to bring it back to its original glory.

     The photo above was taken during my 2015 visit to this store, where we see the store with its prior dark yellow paint and "Food-Pharmacy" sign off to the left of the entrance. While I did dig some decade-old photos of this store out of my vault, 97% of the pictures we'll see today were from my 2020 visit. When I visited this store in 2015, I was more interested in the original Winn-Dixie building a few doors over, and was in and out of this store in less than 5 minutes the first time. In 2015, a Winn-Dixie with Marketplace decor was nothing special in my mind (they were still all over the place back then), but as remodels ramped up in coming years, I finally motivated myself to return to Avon Park and give this store the full AFB treatment 5 years later (and thankfully did so at that time, considering it ended up closing in the hands of Aldi).

     Other than the exterior repaint and the closure of this store's pharmacy in the 2016 pharmacy purge, nothing else changed here in the 5 year gap between my visits. We can see though that this store received some facade alterations in the early 2000's refresh when compared to the exterior photo from grand opening day, which is when the exterior signage in my photos hails from. I had thought about returning to this store for a third and final visit in late 2024 after hearing the news of its impending conversion to Aldi, but that never happened in the end. Nothing more changed here between 2020 and 2024, so I didn't really miss much by skipping a final visit, especially since my 2020 tour was pretty comprehensive anyway.

     Switching back to 2020, we see the store with the beige/off-white paint scheme it spent the rest of its days with, this particular photo looking toward the liquor store on the far right side of the building. The Winn-Dixie liquor store in Avon Park appears to have closed alongside the main store, as it does not appear as a standalone liquor location when I search for it on Winn-Dixie's website (even though Aldi's original construction rendering states the liquor store would remain here).

     Walking up to the doors, the store employees wrote a chalk message on the ground thanking teachers for all that they do. Being late 2020, the days of peak Covid pandemonium, it was nice to see the store employees thanking teachers for their work during those odd times (and just for the optimism in general too). Also on the doors were the Covid-era signs about wearing masks in stores, an interesting relic of the times to look back on five years later.

     Inside the store, it was quite nice to have the morning light shining in through the front windows, however, the light seemed to exemplify the aging nature of the ceiling and lights near the entrance.

     While this store seemed a little worn and tired around the edges after retaining much of the same look for the last 25 years, I wouldn't describe it as dirty or neglected though. This store was certainly on the nicer edge of the older store spectrum at Winn-Dixie, as its primary flaws were more cosmetic than maintenance related.

     We enter the store in a lower ceiling area that was home to the check lanes and BOGO bins, but as we move further to the right, we find the produce department.

     Just prior to reaching the produce department, we find the little alcove that in most recent times was used as the store's promo area. In this store's earlier days this alcove was most likely home to either the photo counter or video rental department, although some later Marketplace stores put wine up here instead.

     Entering the produce department, the lower ceiling extends through this department before ending at the right side wall where the liquor store was carved out. Newbuild Marketplace stores of the mid-1990's only had the lower ceiling over the check lanes, so the extended lower ceiling in this store must have been a byproduct of this building starting out as a store other than Winn-Dixie.

      On the wall separating the liquor store from the main store, a banner covers the chain link fencing that acted as a window between the two salesfloors. Since none of the grand opening articles mentioned anything about a liquor store, I'd have to assume the liquor store was added at some point in the early 2000's, most likely during the "Marketplace Refresh" that happened during that era. If the liquor store was added at that time, it would have pushed the produce department closer to the check lanes and absorbed some of the space left behind from removing the fancy fresh food bars and shrinking the floral department.

     Leaving the lower ceiling part of the store, we find the produce department's wall sign above more banners for the attached liquor store.

    In addition to the main sign, the phrase "Harvest Fresh" appears again on the front wall. Winn-Dixie really wanted to get the point across that their produce was fresh, even if the decor wasn't so fresh anymore come the 2020's!

     Leaving produce, the side wall angles outward into an alcove where we find the floral department as well as the store's first 2 grocery aisles (which were pretty short due to being in the alcove). While floral would have had a massive dedicated counter in this store's earlier days, by this time in the store's life floral was reduced to that little island and a cooler on the wall where it angles to the right.

     Since my 2015 visit to this store was close to Christmas, a second table of floral was set up to display some poinsettias, making this department feel a bit bigger.

     By 2020, the above photo was a better representation of this store's floral selection in modern times, that little island in the middle of a rather open and sparse section of the salesfloor.

     Entering this store's first aisle, the rather short aisle 1, we find some coolers that contained pre-packaged cheeses and lunch meats (somewhat isolated from the rest of the meat and dairy selection located on the left side of the store).

     During my 2015 visit, the lunch meats (or should I say, "Luncheon" Meats, although the phrasing depends on which of the two signs you look at) coolers still had their early 2010's Transformational-era topper signs. These signs were removed by the time of my 2020 visit, but were a common sight in Winn-Dixie stores of all eras and decors during the mid-2010's.

     Jumping back to 2020, here's a similar photo showing the coolers with their now-barren tops.

     Turning the corner from lunch meats, we find the home of the freshly-sliced lunch meats when the deli counter appears before us. The above photo was taken in 2015, and I just so happened to take a photo of the deli from a very similar angle once again in 2020:

     Besides the promo signs and price tags changing design, the deli still looked the same 5 years later, and the seafood sign in the background was still only half-working. Sadly, that deli photo will mark the end of my 2015 coverage of this store, so from here on out everything will be from my 2020 visit. Like I said before, a plain-ol' Marketplace store apparently wasn't enough to hold my attention back in 2015, so after walking down the grand aisle and taking 4 interior photos, I looped back around and left. I wish at the very least I walked the entire perimeter of the store in 2015 and got a photo of the pharmacy before it closed, but I don't know what I was thinking back then!

     Other than being a bit spread out and containing a few extra aisles due to its larger size, this store's layout follows the typical mid-1990's Marketplace design of deli in the back right corner, bakery in the front left, and frozen foods in the middle of the store.

      Here's one final look toward the deli and its working neon sign, the only one left in the entire building that still worked 100%.

     Leaving the deli, the first full-length grocery aisle was aisle 3, which partially overlapped with the produce department.

     Moving next door to aisle 4, the sights within the grocery aisles start to look much more normal. It's kind of strange seeing a Winn-Dixie with the older style full-height shelving after becoming so used to to the lower shelving the company was installing during the Down Down and Winn Win remodels. Aisle 4 feels like a cavern of soda with the old shelves!

     The front end's lower ceiling runs across the store from produce (as we saw) all the way over to the former pharmacy box past the check lanes. This style lower ceiling seems more appropriate for a late 1980's or early 1990's Marketplace store, rather than one opened in 1994 like this one.

      Entering aisle 6, we see the big red hand pointing to those Down Down prices. Even though Winn-Dixie pulled their emphasis from the Down Down branding by the early 2020's, Down Down themed price tags remained until a year or two ago when the company's extended sales were rebranded as "Price Hold", which is what is still used today.

     Returning to the back wall we find an emphasis on meats, as the "& Fish" part of the neon sign burnt out a while back. While this sign was installed to denote the service meat and seafood counter, it appears the service area was converted into customer accessible open coolers for pre-packaged products for this store's later years.

     Even though the full-service features were removed at some point, the prep area of the former service counter was left open and visible to shoppers. It looks like there was some kind of seafood netting decoration back there too - a nice touch to dress up the empty walls!

     Beyond the old meat and seafood service counter were additional meat coolers, with a Purple/Maroon-era customer service sign joining the Marketplace wall decor.

     Returning to the grocery aisles, the morning sun shines down on the breakfast foods aisle in a very appropriate fashion.

     Following aisle 8 we enter the frozen foods department, which still retained its original setup with the coffin cooler down the center of the department. The coffin coolers appear to have been repainted white (or were totally replaced) in the early 2000's refresh, as the originals would have better matched the color scheme of the rest of the store like this.

     At the end of the frozen foods aisle we find the Fresh Meats sign, which unlike some of the other similar signs in the store, was not neon (and even if it was, may not have been fully functional come the 2020's anyway). The posters under the Fresh Meats sign describing different cuts of Pork & Lamb as well as Beef & Veal are an interesting Marketplace-era relic that most stores lost years ago.

      Panning the camera to the left from the previous view, the meat department extends out a bit further before before transitioning into dairy closer to the store's back left corner.

     After that short diversion to meats, we're back in frozen foods with a look toward the front of the store. One quirk about the frozen foods department in these Marketplace stores is that frozen foods were never typically assigned aisle numbers. Originally Frozen Foods would have had an overhead sign denoting it, although that sign was removed from this store at some point. Even after receiving new aisle markers in the early 2000's, the original aisle numbering scheme was kept, with aisles 8 and 9 abutting frozen foods and these two aisles remaining unnumbered.

     Speaking of aisle 9, that's what we'll see next after leaving frozen foods. Aisle 9 was home to international foods, with some old Marketplace tile patterns lining the center of this aisle too.

     After having seen Fresh Meats and Luncheon Meats, we finally find the sign for the Frozen Meats, covering all the types of meat we could want to buy here!

     Entering aisle 10, we find baby supplies as we begin our transition to health and beauty.

      The health and beauty aisles in this store contained lower-height shelving, which was common for this department even back in the 1990's. The blank wall in front of me at the end of the aisle was the former home of the pharmacy counter, which was closed in 2016 and blocked off with shelves by the time of my visit.

     This visit occurring in 2020, I'm surprised Winn-Dixie was able to find so much toilet paper to fill the shelves in front of the old pharmacy counter with!

     Health and beauty extended out to aisle 13, with the next few aisles after this containing other assorted non-foods.

     As we near the back left corner, we can tell this is a pretty wide store for a mid-1990's Marketplace as we look across the back wall (and we still have a few more aisles to go too!).

     While this store seemed to have a decent amount of TP by the old pharmacy counter, the other paper product in high demand in 2020 - paper towels - was looking to be in thin supply here in aisle 15.

     Nearing the left side of the store we find this cutout in the back wall to access the backrooms, through which you'd also find the restrooms. The display table with the Winn-Dixie logo was interesting too, although the way the decal of the Winn-Dixie logo was cut out looks quite strange!

     Aisle 16 was this store's last aisle, although when factoring in the two frozen foods aisles, that would give this store 18 aisles total. While this store was on the larger size for a Marketplace, some of Winn-Dixie's expanded 1980's stores end up coming in with even higher aisle counts than we see here, with the widest Winn-Dixie I've ever seen clocking in at 21 aisles (which is also my record for most aisles in a Publix too, that Publix being an old early 2000's Albertsons). Here in aisle 16 though, we find Beverages and Dairy on the left side wall, and by "Beverages", I don't think the decor designers were referring to the milk and orange juice...

     Additional signage for the dairy department appeared toward the back of aisle 16, with this photo also giving us a closeup of one of the center aisle coffin coolers still decorated with its original Marketplace colors and trim.

     Nearing the front of aisle 16, dairy gives way for the beer cooler, with the bakery visible in the distance at the end of the aisle.

     The coolers on the left wall are recessed inward a bit, with a lower ceiling overhanging them as seen above. The beer coolers on the wall also have their original colors and trim as well, adding to the throwback feel of this aisle.

     Looking toward the bakery department itself, we find some Oven Fresh dead neon. The last of the three neon signs left in this store by the early 2020's, the bakery sign was the only one completely unlit, making this sign look pretty sad in its burnt out state.

     Even though the "Baked Goods" neon would light no more, at least the "Bake Shoppe" sign below was able to display the department's name in a prominent fashion.

     The bakery had a number of sub-category signs on the recessed wall, such as this pictured one reading "Cakes", as well as the "Bake Shoppe" and "Breads" signs seen in previous photos.

     Behind the bakery counter itself, not only do we find more original pink-trimmed coolers, but there were additional Marketplace-era promotional signs hanging on the wall too. Those signs included ones advertising the assorted baked goods, in addition to a really neat 1990's "Winn-Dixie - America's Supermarket" sign featuring the company's classic logo. That same logo and slogan was also embossed onto the glass above the cooler in the foreground too, a nice (albeit outdated by this time) touch.

     For whatever reason I took a lot of photos of this store's bakery, but there was plenty to see here with all the old signs hanging around!

     Leaving the bakery, we return to the front end once again. As typical for most Marketplace stores in the early 2000's, the check lanes were updated to feature the Purple/Maroon lane lights, much like how all the aisle signs in this store were updated to the Purple/Maroon variety as well around the same time.

     The customer service counter was located along the wall next to the old pharmacy box, seeming just a bit more tucked away into the corner compared to how the service desk would be placed in a newbuild store from this era.

     While this store had 6 check lanes total in its later years, I believe there would have been more lanes extending out toward produce when this store opened, as many stores had the total number of lanes pared down a bit in the early 2000's.

      It wouldn't be right to conclude the interior tour of a Winn-Dixie Marketplace without a look at the "Thank you for Shopping at America's Supermarket" sign. With the coffin coolers still in place, getting a nice overview shot of this sign is much easier compared to when new upright coolers are installed that block most of this sign's view from the aisle!

     Leaving Winn-Dixie, here's a look down the strip of stores separating the Winn-Dixie Marketplace from the plaza's original Winn-Dixie store, the original store's entrance being those doors in the distance.

     From the parking lot, here's a clearer view of what has become of the original Avon Park Winn-Dixie in recent times. From 1994 until 2025, the original Avon Park Winn-Dixie housed a Big Lots store. We'll be touring that Big Lots over on MFR to see what surprises from Winn-Dixie's past were still lurking inside that building. Considering Big Lots' recent demise as well, Avon Square was dealt two decent blows in rapid fashion once again, with a large chunk of the Winn-Dixie sitting empty following Aldi's conversion and now an empty former Big Lots to deal with as well.

     Seven months after it closed to begin its conversion into an Aldi, this store should be close to reopening in its new form. While Aldi's page for this store only states it will be "coming soon" as of the time this post went live, Google claims this store will be reopening on April 30, 2025, which seems reasonable based on the timeline of reopenings of some other conversions so far. The construction company hired to carry through with this store's conversion posted some photos of the Winn-Dixie building early in the demolition process, which you can see here for an interesting perspective.

     Per this drawing, Aldi will be occupying the left half of the old Winn-Dixie, and only make minor tweaks to the exterior. The remaining 27,000 square feet of the building Aldi isn't taking is still up for lease per Aldi's website, so it remains to be seen what will become of the rest of the building. While this store was certainly overdue for a remodel, it's still sad to see Aldi take this store, especially as it leaves Avon Park with Walmart as its last remaining full-service grocer (following Publix's closure in 2009). A Save A Lot occupies half of the old Publix these days as another grocery option, but it also remains to be seen how the arrival of Aldi will impact the Save A Lot next door too (especially as Save A Lot seems to be closing more stores than they open anymore). We still have two more years of watching and waiting to see the full extent of what 220 Winn-Dixie and Harvey's stores have fallen into the hands of Aldi, as there are still well over 100 more locations waiting to be revealed by the time this project has run its course in 2027. That being said, we'll be seeing plenty more of Winn-Dixie on the blog throughout the rest of the year as I showcase more of Aldi's victims, as well as some other Winn-Dixie stores that (as long as nothing crazy happens with C&S's bunch) should be safe for the near future. Anyway, we'll take a brief pause from Winn-Dixie and return to our old friend Albertsons for our next post, so be sure to come back in two weeks for that!

Until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger