Publix #139 - St. Pete Beach, FL (Dolphin Village Shopping Center)

Publix #139

4655 Gulf Boulevard, St. Pete Beach, FL - Dolphin Village Shopping Center

Today's post is a presentation of Pinellas County retail, and a collaboration with the Sing Oil Blogger, whose post you can see here.

     Typically when I feature a Publix in Pinellas County, it's in a former Albertsons building. For a refreshing change of pace, this one is not! However, this store is coming to the blog today because of some sad news that broke back in May involving Publix #139 at Dolphin Village. You may have heard the news when it happened, but if not, here's a brief recap of what happened:

Photo courtesy of WTSP

     On the afternoon of May 13, 2025, a fire broke out and engulphed the CVS store a few doors down from the Dolphin Village Publix, which by that evening firefighters believed was contained enough to begin the process of monitoring and retreating. However, due to the presence of a difficult to access void in the front facade of the shopping center (created during a 1980's remodel), the fire was not fully extinguished as firefighters originally presumed, as hot embers had entered the void. That caused the fire to reignite later in the evening, not only rekindling the blaze in the CVS building, but causing the fire to spread down the front of Dolphin Village all the way to the Publix store. Fire crews had to rush back to the scene to extinguish the blaze once again, which had now caused extensive damage to the majority of Dolphin Village's anchor tenants. The Dolphin Village fire was major news in the Tampa Bay area that day this past May, and there are numerous articles and videos about the fire online. In addition to the article I linked to earlier in this paragraph, here, here, and here are a few more if you wish to catch up on this topic or refresh your memory on these events. While it's sad to see a supermarket burn down in any case, it was especially sad to see Publix #139 succumb to this fate as it was one of the oldest Publix stores left in the chain, and the oldest remaining Publix in Tampa Bay and along Florida's West Coast. Two months after the fire tore through Dolphin Village, it's still unclear what Publix's plans are for reopening store #139. Publix has yet to release an official statement on the fate of this store, but the rumor mill is swirling, with Redditors mentioning a possible September reopening, while a contradictory rumor on Facebook mentioned January 2026, so I would take all that with a grain of salt. Being a 58-year-old store containing many unusual quirks due to its age, I also wouldn't be surprised if Publix is pursuing the option of using these events to push through a totally new store, something Publix has unsuccessfully tried to do in the past at Dolphin Village under normal conditions. Unlike the CVS where the fire started, the Publix building and the stores in between Publix and CVS were not declared a total loss, so it is possible the store could reopen with an Evergreen remodel of some kind, but we will have to wait and see what Publix and the landlord ultimately decide. Regardless of the outcome, we'll use today's post to look back on Dolphin Village and its retro Publix store, and we'll start off by going back to the days when Publix stores had wings as we learn about Dolphin Village's early days:

     58 years before the fire tore through much of it, the Dolphin Village Shopping Center opened as the first (and still only) major retail center on the Pinellas barrier island between the Bayway and the Corey Causeway in downtown St. Pete Beach. Due to its location, Dolphin Village was not only a convenience for the locals living on the barrier island, but also for the numerous tourists staying in nearby hotels to stock up on groceries and sundries on their beach vacations.

     When it opened in June 1967, Dolphin Village boasted anchor stores Publix, TG&Y, and Eckerd Drug, as well as numerous other local stores and restaurants like the locally famous Lenny Dee's Dolphin Den nightclub, Frances Willard Candies, Goody's Shoes, and more.

     I was quite impressed with how many photos and sketches there were of Dolphin Village from its early days - most advertisements tended to include some form of the sketch seen above in it. In the sketch you can see the plaza in its original form, including the Publix when it still had its famous wings.

     While the sketches are nice and were also pretty accurate to what the real shopping center looked like, here's an actual photo of Dolphin Village taken shortly before the center's June 1967 grand opening. In the photo above, the Publix and TG&Y stores are clearly visible, with Eckerd just out of view to Publix's left.

     As for the star of today's post, Publix #139 opened for business on June 29, 1967, the same day the rest of the shopping center held its grand opening ceremonies. If your car wasn't working to make it over to the ceremony on time, apparently a pogo stick would work as an alternative form of transportation! (Not even minding the fact she was able to jump around on one of those things in those shoes too!)

     Publix took out an entire two-page spread in the St. Petersburg Times to announce the specials and celebratory offers for their new Dolphin Village store.

     For the festivities, on top of the advertised price specials, a hot dog cart would be around to offer shoppers 10 cent hot dogs and 5 cent bottles of Coca-Cola, free Folger's coffee and Archway cookies would be served all day, free ground beef cookbooks would be handed out, and contests would be held where shoppers could win a silver coffee service set and a Pittsburgh Plate Glass mirror.

     After 9 years in business, Publix gave this store its first remodel in 1976, as noted in this grand reopening ad published on July 1st of that year. Publix's grand reopening aligned up nicely with America's Bicentennial celebration that was to take place a few days later, with Publix even adopting a 4th of July theme and special logo to celebrate that occasion too. Who knows, maybe Publix's next grand reopening in St. Pete Beach will line up with America's Semiquincentennial in 2026.

     In 1984, Dolphin Village was remodeled and expanded into the look that persisted all the way until 2025. Owners Sembler Company wanted to bring an Art Deco theme to Dolphin Village, with co-owner Greg Sembler stating his company wanted "to make an artistic statement" with the new design. Per the article, the new Dolphin Village featured "America's first - and probably only - pink and yellow Publix supermarket, with some splashes of blue neon" (at least until the 1990's rolled around and that pink pastel design became en vogue in these parts). The art deco theme and color scheme was meant to compliment one of St. Pete Beach's most famous establishments, the renowned Don CeSar Beach Resort, aka "The Pink Palace". In addition to the facade upgrades of the existing center (an upgrade that eventually led to the center's downfall in the fire of 2025, due to the lack of access into the void space the new facade created for the fire to spread through), a new two-story addition was added just south of the existing TG&Y store. The new addition would feature shops surrounding a courtyard and fountain in an open-air mall design, with a glass elevator as the expansion's centerpiece. This addition was designed to give the center a classier look and appeal to the higher-end clientele that lived in the area.

     Following the major 1984 overhaul, Dolphin Village only received some minor updates (like new paint) since. Most other work Dolphin Village received typically centered around the courtyard area at the plaza's southern end, including refurbishment work following a sale of the plaza in 1999, and another renovation around 2021. However, on the Publix side of things, some big changes happened there in the 1990's. Taking advantage of the closure of the Dolphin Theater between it and TG&Y, Publix expanded the Dolphin Village store into the old theater space during its Wavy Pastel remodel in the mid-1990's. That brought the original Wing Store to roughly 33,000 square feet total following the expansion - still a small store, but a bit bigger than the average 25,000 square feet a typical Wing Store would have been.

     As you could imagine, being a 1960's store that was only able to receive a small expansion in the 1990's, Publix was itching for a new store at Dolphin Village by the mid-2000's. In 2006, a redevelopment plan for Dolphin Village was revealed that would have included a new Publix store along with additional condominiums on the shopping center site. This redevelopment plan drew quite a bit of ire from the locals, and they were going to make their concerns heard.

     The proposed concept of what the 2006 rebuild of the Dolphin Village Publix would have entailed can be seen in the top photo of the article above. In addition to a 7 story condominium tower, Dolphin Village was to be reimagined into a new urban style building that fronted Gulf Boulevard. The new Publix was to occupy the second level of a new three-story supermarket building, with the bottom and top levels serving as the shopping center's parking areas. The Publix would be accessed via a corridor between a two-story retail facade for smaller shops and restaurants (for those accessing the store from the street), or via elevators for those entering from the parking lots.

     The new Dolphin Village Publix was to be another one of the number of urban mixed-use Publix stores that began to become popular in larger cities in the early 2000's, especially in places like South Florida and Atlanta. However, the St. Pete Beach proposal ended up getting caught in a bitter political fight between the area's pro and anti-development forces, with a number of changes to the city's charter being pushed on the November 2006 ballot that would either make development easier or give more power to residents on approving what could and could not be built around town.

     Before those measures even made it to the ballot, developments around town were faced with numerous petitions from various parties that tried to stop most of them from going through. Lawsuits were also filed against the project in hopes of putting an end to them via various legal technicalities, so Dolphin Village was not the only project caught in the legal barrage at the time - it was part of a larger development issue plaguing the town.

     In November 2006, the St. Pete Beach city council saw some shocking results from the election, with the anti-development side gaining a slight edge in the extremely close results. Even with the odds against them, the Dolphin Village redevelopment was to go before the St. Pete Beach city council on February 13, 2007 for a final decision by the city council. Before that final vote, advertisements like the one above were sent out in the local paper by the opposition side, who were afraid that the talk of a new Publix at Dolphin Village was mere appeasement to push through a larger residential development plan that in the end that would forgo the new supermarket.

     Opposition was coming in from all angles on the Dolphin Village redevelopment. On top of the groups promoting less development, others in town felt the city should be promoting more hotel rooms to promote tourism instead of more condos, which many felt were unnecessary in the area. Residents of the existing condos behind Dolphin Village were upset that a new taller structure would be built in front of their buildings, blocking their view of the water. Other residents were opposed to the project because it would have meant the Publix would have to be closed for an extended period of time without an alternative. Still, if the developers were able to convince the city council of their plans, they were hopeful construction on the new Publix and other associated buildings could begin by 2009.

     Even with a seemingly uphill battle before them, the St. Pete Beach city council approved the Dolphin Village redevelopment plans in February 2007. However, as promised by the opposition, a lawsuit was filed to block the development following its approval, and that issue was passed through the courts before the suit was ultimately dismissed in June 2008. With the legal issues settled, it appeared construction would finally happen at long last, but then something else happened: the Great Recession. While unsuccessfully blocking the redevelopment via legal means, the lawsuit filed by the opposition ended up dragging out the plans long enough to be impacted by the economic downturn of the late 2000's, the opposition's efforts indirectly succeeding in the end.

     While rumors of a new Publix at Dolphin Village did pop up around the same time as the early 2020's refurbishment of the courtyard section of the plaza, nothing ended up coming out of that, however I'm sure Publix has been trying to come up with a new plan to replace this aging store even before the fire happened. After reading all this and seeing how there was a serious replacement plan thwarted by the locals in the mid-2000's, the fire seems like Publix's perfect scapegoat to get that new store via much easier means. Should the fire spur a new Publix, it will be interesting to see if modern plans would follow the urban-mixed use vision of the late 2000's (which I could see happening, as this would be a hot piece of property to put some residential on), or if plans of the 2020's would be more retail-centric due to the tragic way the center was lost and to appease any lease issues with the current tenants about replacement locations. Either way, a modern redevelopment of the center would most likely involve the raising of the Publix and many of the other stores above the flood plane (as the late-2000's plan had done), especially after the flooding that was experienced post-Helene in 2024.

     While the pinks and yellows of the 1984 facade remodel were exchanged for the beiges and browns of the 2010's and 2020's by the time of my visit, the facade design we see here is still original from that 1984 remodel. As we'll see a bit later in this post, the current facade was just built over the original one, which revealed a few surprises post-fire.

     I visited this store in the months after the Buccaneer's most recent Super Bowl win in 2021, so every Publix in the Tampa Bay area at the time had one of these "#GoBucs" banners hanging out front to kick off the new NFL season post-win.

     Things were certainly much happier here at Dolphin Village during my visit in 2021, with Tampa Bay having had quite the year in sports in 2021 with both a Super Bowl win and a Stanley Cup victory (and the 2020's have been very generous to Florida in terms of the Stanley Cup too, with the state claiming 4 of the 6 victories so far this decade - who know Floridians would be so good at ice hockey, of all things?!).

     Anyway, entering the store through the left side vestibule, it was quite cramped in here! Between the carts, the pallet of water, the order pickup staging area, and the beachwear on the wall, there was a lot of stuff! The store's split vestibule setup appears to be a product of the 1990's expansion, as the split vestibule design was a late 1980's/early 1990's Publix feature.

     Stepping inside, the cramped-ness of the store improves a little bit, but not much. Coming in through the left vestibule, we find the customer service counter located between the two vestibules along the front wall, with the right vestibule hidden between the lottery machine and the deli counter.

     A little bit of the right vestibule can be seen in the photo above, behind the large Buccaneers-themed display I was actually trying to capture in this photo. You don't see a giant inflatable pirate in most Publix stores!

     The thick square columns toward the right side of the store mark our transition into the expansion space, into which Publix relocated the deli, bakery, and dairy departments to create a new grand aisle during the 1990's remodel.

     The deli counter, which we saw in the previous photo, is located in the front right corner (practically on top of the right vestibule entrance), with the bakery following just beyond that, leaving dairy for the back right corner.

     The gigantic columns that mark the expansion line into the old movie theater make the store's current grand aisle a bit awkward to navigate, leaving a tight space for a single shopping cart to navigate through between them and the "Grab and Go" coolers. These "Grab and Go" coolers were added as part of a late 2010's refresh this store received, with a late 2010's Classy Market 3.0/Sienna sign installed above the coolers, an interesting juxtaposition against the rest of the store's early 2010's Classy Market 2.5 signage. While a number of early Classy Market 3.0/Sienna stores received late 2010's upgrades like this, I can't think of any other Classy Market 2.5 holdouts that received similar updates.

     While still a bit smaller than normal, we get a little more breathing room when we move back over by the service counters themselves. It's also interesting how Publix tried to maximize space a bit by building shelves against the large columns - at least put those to good use if they have to be there! (Although having them there to hold up the ceiling is probably quite important too!)

     Although the salesfloor space was a bit narrow, the bakery service counter itself was quite large and contained the usual Publix bakery selection. The deli actually felt more cramped than the bakery here, but the deli was also quite busy when I was here, which didn't help my space perception all that much!

     From the edge of dairy, here's an overview of the grand aisle as seen from the back of the store. Due to the lack of space at the front of the store, some of the typical front-end BOGO bins got pushed back here to this less-prominent part of the store.

     One of the more unusual aspects of this store was its dairy department, which was tucked into a small alcove in the back of the building.

     I figure Sing's post is probably going to go into more detail about this, but Publix #139 shares a lot of similarities to Publix #215 in Palm Bay and the former Publix #220 in Spring Hill. That being said I'll skip over all the details of that discussion, but I'd just like to point out that Publix #139 was the smallest of those three stores, and the only one that had dairy tucked into a weird alcove like this (whereas dairy was a more open space in #215 and #220). The creation of this alcove was either a product of this store's reduced size or a weird quirk left over from the old movie theater this store expanded into, but either way, it's an odd sight for a Publix.

     Some decorative Classy Market 2.5 wall embellishments broke up all the blank wall space in the alcove, under which the dairy coolers were housed. Loaves of white bread occupied the small aisle of groceries in the center of the alcove.

     Over the white bread aisle, Publix decided to hang the "bread" category marker directly over the aisle like an actual aisle sign, which I found amusing.

     From within the alcove, here's a look back at the grand aisle. Is it just me, or is it a bit strange to think that at one time people used to watch movies in what was most recently a supermarket deli and bakery? It's not often you hear of grocers taking over an old movie theater space in some form!

     From the back aisle, here's one final look at the dairy alcove before we continue onward with the tour...

     Turning around for a preview of what's to come on the back wall, we find the meat coolers next after dairy, followed by the service seafood counter. There's no missing the seafood counter with it's funky design, and we'll see that in more detail in just a bit, but first, the grocery aisles:

     Unlike the giant support poles in the grand aisle making that area a bit awkward to navigate, these poles we find in aisle 2 (which I believe mark where the wall that once separated the original Wing Store's salesfloor from side stockroom) were more streamlined within the shelves to make navigating the aisle a bit easier. I guess in old expanded stores, you can only win so many battles with the placement of these poles.

     Rounding the corner, here's a quick look across the front end. In the photo above, you'll notice this store received self-checkouts as part of its late 2010's refresh as well. While the addition of the self-checkouts and grab-and-go coolers seemed to suggest Publix wasn't in as much of a rush to replace this store compared to other old stores still holding onto Classy Market 2.5 (which is now the oldest Publix decor still in existence at any operational Publix store), the fact it still had this decor made it seem like Publix hadn't completely tabled the option of a rebuild either, as I feel a more thorough late 2010's remodel would have happened otherwise.

     As far as decor lineage goes, I believe this store went from Wavy Pastel to Classy Market 2.0 to Classy Market 2.5. The late-2000's Classy Market 2.0 remodel seems to have come about once the official plans to rebuild this store in the late 2000's died, as Publix realized they would be stuck with this store for a while longer. The mid-2010's Classy Market 2.5 remodel, like the Classy Market 2.0 remodel before it, was fairly basic, consisting of mostly the new decor and paint. Decor aside, as we enter aisle 3, a fun blast from the past begins to greet us: the original Wing Store striped terrazzo!

     While the entire perimeter of the store was retiled (like we can see above, probably due to the extensive work surrounding the rebuilding and relocation of all the service departments in the 1990's expansion), the original terrazzo was allowed to live on in the grocery aisles. While green striped terrazzo and beige checkered tiles don't make for the most seamless transition in the world, nothing screams classic Publix like that striped terrazzo!

     Returning to the grocery aisles, here's some more of that classic terrazzo for everyone to soak in.

     One difference you'll notice between the Wing Store terrazzo stripes and the stripes in the 1970's and early 1980's Publix stores are the thickness of the color bands. The Wing stores had narrower stripes compared to their later counterparts, like this example from a 1970's store for comparison.

     In aisle 7 we find the original center of the Wing Store's salesfloor, where the stripe pattern changes directions and creates a chevron pattern down the transitional aisle.

     Moving right along to aisle 8, the unique seafood department comes into view.

     While its sibling stores #215 and #220 had unique interpretations of design for their own seafood departments, #215 and #220 both using a sawblade style pattern I've never seen at any other store besides those two, #139 opted for a "batwing" seafood department. While there are similarities between #139 and its larger siblings #215 and #220, #139 is the black sheep of the family with its quirks like the dairy alcove and the different seafood department design.

     It would have been interesting to see what #139 (as well as #215 and #220) looked like with their original post-expansion versions of Wavy Pastel, to see how the unique seafood departments tied into the decor and if these wall embellishments actually contributed to the decor design or were just a way to make the seafood counter stand out from the wall. Anyhow, here's one final pulled-back view of the seafood counter from further up aisle 8 for everyone to take in before we continue along with the tour:

     Next door in aisle 9, where we find various strengths of beverage options, we also find the left end of the original Wing Store salesfloor, where the terrazzo rather abruptly transitions back into tile. From what I can tell, Publix never expanded the left side of the building, so I believe the area compromising the modern frozen foods and produce department was previously stock room space that was reconfigured into sales floor space during the expansion.

     A cooler, a case of White Claw, and a giant flamingo floatie - what more do you need for a day at the beach?

     All that stuff marks our transition into the store's penultimate aisle, number 11, home to more beer and alcoholic beverage options if the White Claw we just saw on display isn't your thing.

     Aisle 11, as well its its neighbor aisle 12, run only two-thirds the length of the salesfloor to make room for the store's produce department, where we'll be stopping next:

     To make up for its smaller space, this store had some rather tall multi-tiered produce displays in use, another unusual feature for Publix.

     From produce, here's a final look across the store's back wall - you just can't miss the seafood department no matter where you are!

     A small floral department can be found between aisles 11 and 12, although I don't recall this store having any dedicated floral department signage of its own (probably because of the department's small size).

     The store's last grocery aisle, aisle 12, is home to part of the frozen foods department. The remainder of frozen foods is located in a small alcove in the store's front left corner, which we'll get a glimpse of in the next photo:

     The coolers around the perimeter of the alcove were home to ice cream, with more coolers in the middle of the alcove just out of frame to my right to give the aisle a U-shape design. While the Florida-themed foam coolers make sense to sell here as a souvenir of your Florida beach trip, it appears this store got a mis-shipment of Georgia themed ones too! Maybe a few of those were left for sale by the time the Sing Oil Blogger got here so he could bring them back to their homeland!

     In addition to serving as a home for foam coolers and giant inflatable animal floaties, these last few coolers served as home to a fishing pole display. While I can see bags of ice in the coolers under the fishing poles, it would have been super convenient to store frozen bait in there too, but the other items in the cooler appear to be frozen drink mixers and ice pops - not the best things to catch fish with unless fish like to party!

     In addition to the customer service desk (located just out of frame to the left), the store's front wall is also home to a greeting card display, visible beyond the check lanes in the above photo. Looking over the front end, it's a pretty typical 1990's style set-up with a faux skylight lightbox added during the expansion. While not the slanted style like 1980's and 1990's newbuilds would have received, this flat style light still creates the same effect.

     Back outside, this is what Publix #139 looked like from ca. 2011 until the fire in 2025. While Publix was probably close to releasing another replacement attempt for this store, the fire may have hastened the inevitable. It's certainly sad what happened to this store, potentially leaving the area without a grocery store for even longer as the fire is investigated, insurance claims are made, the landlord figures out replacement plans and lease issues from existing tenants, draws any plans, etc. Hopefully all that will get sorted out soon, and we'll soon learn what will become of this Publix and the rest of Dolphin Village.

     Now that we've toured the Publix, let's take a little time to look over the rest of Dolphin Village. First up is Publix's neighbor, Dollar Tree, which once housed the plaza's TG&Y store:

     TG&Y, as mentioned earlier in the post, was one of Dolphin Village's original anchors dating back to 1967. While TG&Y had closed many stores throughout the 1990's, the Dolphin Village location must have been one of the company's best, as the last reference I found for it was in an ad from 2000 - two years before the remainder of TG&Y's parent company, McCrory Stores, would cease operations. Following the closure of TG&Y, it was replaced by its closest counterpart in modern times: Dollar Tree, which at the time of my visit in 2021 still lived up to its name.

I wonder if Mary Tyler Moore picked out that font for Dollar Tree?

     While I was here, I actually had to run inside Dollar Tree for something. At first I wasn't expecting to photograph this store at all, until I walked inside and realized it still had the late 1990's/early 2000's Dollar Tree decor in place. Being that Dollar Tree's change to becoming the $1.25 Tree was on the horizon during my visit, I decided to take a few photos of this vintage Dollar Tree decor, as the price change forced all stores that still had this decor into a remodel due to all of its references to everything costing $1.

     The above photo is a great example of why all of these stores had to remodel once the price change went into effect. While newer Dollar Tree stores only had to swap out a few cardboard signs to remove all references to everything costing $1, these older stores had that moniker painted right onto the wall in some cases!

     The "One Price $1" references carried on to the aisle markers, and if that wasn't enough...

     …a giant banner hanging over the middle of the store would certainly get the point across too!

     Once Dollar Tree moved in, most remnants from TG&Y were seemingly removed from the inside, as I didn't notice anything in here that seemed too out of place for a standard Dollar Tree.

     Like Publix, Dollar Tree has also been closed since the fire, the southernmost tenant from the CVS where the fire started to be closed. The two-story portion of the center added in 1984, which abuts Dollar Tree, has reopened since the fire, so I wonder if that would remain should the rest of the main strip be demolished and redeveloped into something new?

     Within a few months of my visit, this store was updated to Dollar Tree's current look, which has actually been around for a while now. Thankfully modern Dollar Tree stores forgo carpet in favor of vinyl flooring, which is much easier to clean and less likely to stain like the old carpet, like we can see in the photo above - yuck!

     Back at the front, this Dollar Tree had the chain's old setup of 6 cash registers total. Most modern Dollar Tree stores only have 3-4 check lanes, most of which now have the larger belt-driven counters compared to these older ones with just a small counter.

     We'll end our Dollar Tree visit with this look at one of the old-style register counters, with the double lane lights pointing to the different sides of the counter.

     While Dollar Tree didn't keep much inside the store from TG&Y, I'd have to imagine these windows and the placement of the doors are original to the TG&Y's days, as none of these features looked new (or at least from the early 2000's). Publix's right side entrance is visible in the distance from this vantage point as well, but instead of heading back over that way, let's go next door and check out the courtyard area:

     Turning around, this is the view we see leaving Dollar Tree and entering the courtyard area.

     The fountain is front and center in the courtyard, with some decorative landscaping behind it leading toward the glass elevator, which is obscured a bit by the palm trees.

     During my visit, a sign was placed in front of the fountain announcing that changes to the courtyard would be coming soon. Those changes appeared to involve a new awning, new landscaping, and a freshened-up fountain, but nothing major.

     Still some plants in the way, but here's a look toward the courtyard's fountain and glass elevator. This is a nice little space, so I hope the courtyard remains should Dolphin Village be transformed into something new.

     For the last part of our Dolphin Village tour, we'll jump to the other end of the strip for a quick look at the infamous CVS, where the 2025 fire started.

     Starting out as an Eckerd in 1967, this store became a CVS in 2004 alongside all the other Eckerd stores in Florida. Being that there really isn't anywhere around to build a new free-standing store with a drive-thru, CVS remained in this in-line location until May 13, 2025, when this happened:

Photo courtesy of Fox 13 Tampa Bay

     Unlike the rest of the strip, the Dolphin Village CVS was declared a total loss in the fire, as its entire roof collapsed and many of its walls were ripped down by firefighters to extinguish the blaze. While the official cause of the fire still has yet to be released as of July 2025, a witness mentioned that shortly before the store became engulfed by flames, smoke was seen coming from a display within the CVS store.

Photo courtesy of WTSP

     Once all the dust settled and the fire was fully out, this was the sight that greeted everyone come the morning of May 14, 2025. After firefighters ripped apart the facade from the 1984 remodel to extinguish the flames in the void, it revealed that the new facade was just a cover over the center's original 1967 exterior. During the remodel the original facade was just encased inside the new one, revealing all the original store signs from 1984 after it was ripped off! While a bit charred due to the fire, the original Eckerd sign was revealed, as well as its sloped shingle roof. A few other vintage signs from the neighboring strip were revealed after the fire too, and in this drone video, you can see some other interesting vantage points of Dolphin Village post-fire. Seeing all that, it's quite the miracle everyone got out of the plaza safe!

Photo courtesy of Spectrum News 9

     As of right now, the image above depicts the current state of Dolphin Village, a charred building with a scarred facade, potentially awaiting a date with demolition before long. I'd actually be shocked if Publix reopens this store using any of the original building, unless there's some kind of weird issue with the landlord or zoning rules/modern building codes that would make them opt to salvage the existing building instead.

     Anyway, from that sight in 2025, here's one final look at Dolphin Village from its glory days, this particular sketch of the plaza included in a 10th anniversary ad from 1977. While the center has been remodeled a few times over the last 58 years, the fire will most likely bring forward the biggest changes its seen to date. In addition to Publix, I wonder if Dollar Tree and CVS will also rebuild/reopen at this site, or if they may get pushed out in favor of a plan like we saw from the late 2000's? I can only imagine a new or heavily remodeled Publix would include a pharmacy (unlike the old store) to take over for CVS if they choose not to return, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens in the coming months.

     Should Publix #139 be officially closed and rebuilt, that would leave 7 pre-1970 stores left in the chain (all of which are in South Florida), and of those 7, 4 have replacement plans that I know about. Considering the circumstances, hopefully the residents of St. Pete Beach will be more receptive to a plans for a new Publix this time around if that is the case, and there won't be as much drama as there was in the late 2000's. Whichever way the decision goes, I'll be looking out for updates on what the Dolphin Village rebuild/reopening plans will entail, so hopefully we'll find out more concrete details soon.

     Anyway, to wrap things up here, being that Publix #139 was right across the street from the beach, I couldn't resist running across Gulf Boulevard for a quick photo looking out toward the very body of water the road was named after. It was a nice beach day while I was here, but with all the "NO BEACH PARKING" signs in the Dolphin Village lot where I was parked, I didn't want to get towed, so after getting a quick photo it was back to the car and back on the road!

     If you haven't read the Sing Oil Blogger's coverage of Publix #139 yet, be sure to jump over there to read his take on this store, and be sure to come back to AFB in two weeks for more!

So until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger