Former Albertsons #4313 - Fort Myers, FL (South Cleveland Ave.)

Photo courtesy of the Lee County Property Appraiser

 

Albertsons #4313

4515 South Cleveland Avenue, Fort Myers, FL

     AFB returns to Southwestern Florida today for a look at another one of the area's former Albertsons stores. For much of the last week, Southwestern Florida has been in the news for some not so great events, as the major Category 4 Hurricane Ian recently blew through the Cape Coral/Fort Myers/Port Charlotte area, leaving a major path of destruction behind. This particular post has been pre-planned for months, and it's a complete coincidence that it happened to go live shortly after the hurricane came through the area. I wish a speedy recovery to the area - hurricanes are just a part of life in Florida, and we always bounce back.

     Anyway, when it comes to Albertsons' tenure in Southwestern Florida, that legacy all began with the store we'll be exploring today. Albertsons #4313 in Fort Myers, located in the city's original retail district just outside of the Edison Mall, was the first Albertsons store to open in the region. Back in 1976 when this store first opened, Fort Myers was the major hub of commerce in this part of the state. Other major Southwestern Florida cities like Cape Coral, Lehigh Acres, and Port Charlotte were still in their infancy stages in terms of development, and Naples was still a sleepy community for rich retirees. As such, Albertsons was content with their lone store in Fort Myers for a number of years, this store serving as Southwestern Florida's lone Albertsons outpost. It wouldn't be until 1994 when Southwestern Florida would gain its second Albertsons store (#4413 in the southern part of Fort Myers), the opening of store #4413 beginning a small burst of new store development in this part of Florida that would last into the early 2000's as the population in the area grew rapidly.

Photo courtesy of the Lee County Property Appraiser

     Somewhat interestingly, while Albertsons #4313 was the region's first Albertsons store to open, it was also the region's first Albertsons store to close. While #4313 was built at the major junction of US 41 and Colonial Boulevard, just outside of busy Edison Mall, this never appeared to be a very busy store (at least in its later days). The photo above, which was taken in 2000, shows a mostly deserted parking lot, and most of the satellite images from when the store was still open show similar scenes. I know a handful of old photos and satellite images probably isn't the best judge of business, but this store had to be doing pretty bad if Albertsons purged it in 2005, which was the year before the company broke up and began doing major rounds of store closures in Florida.

Photo courtesy of the Lee County Property Appraiser

     As you can see in these photos too, the building received minimal updates throughout the years, retaining much of its original Skaggs-era design. I wouldn't be surprised if this store closed with Blue and Gray Market decor from the early 1990's, as a remodel later in the 1990's would have most likely brought about more major changes to the exterior of the building.

Photo courtesy of the Lee County Property Appraiser

     After Albertsons closed this store in 2005, the building sat empty for about a year until it began its transformation into "Clock Tower Square", a major remodel that turned the former Albertsons building into a small shopping center anchored by two furniture stores - La-Z-Boy and Kincaid Furniture. The photo above was taken in early 2007 just prior to the completion of the Clock Tower Square project, showing the two original tenants and the major transformation that became of the old Albertsons building.

Photo courtesy of the Lee County Property Appraiser

     While the transformation was quite major, what you see here still is the original Albertsons building. It will become more apparent in the satellite images later in this post, but the shell of the old Albertsons was retained, with the building gutted and a new facade added on.

     Returning to the present, we finally get to my own ground coverage of former Albertsons #4313 in its new life as Clock Tower Square. Outside of Kincaid Furniture closing and being replaced with Zing! Patio and Billiards, not much has changed here aesthetically since the building's total overhaul in 2007.

     Of all the new tenants, La-Z-Boy is the largest, taking up approximately half of the former Albertsons space. La-Z-Boy's store occupies the half of the building where Albertsons' service departments (bakery, deli, produce) would have been located.

     While the building's facade was completely rebuilt in the Clock Tower Square conversion, we still find some clues from the past on the right side of the building. While now stuccoed over, you can see the outlines of Albertsons' original river rock panels on this side of the building, one of the last obvious clues that this building once housed an Albertsons.

     It's one of the only Albertsons relics left here, so why not include a second photo of this side of the building?

     In a fancy touch, La-Z-Boy added a covered drive-thru portico to the front of the building as part of the conversion. I don't know how often that gets used here (as most of the furniture La-Z-Boy sells these days is custom made and delivered directly to the buyers home - their physical stores just being a place to look at furniture samples), but something like that can come in handy on a rainy day at the grocery store! (As some early 2000's Publix stores have a similar drive-thru loading lane like this).

     Here's a view across the front of La-Z-Boy's facade, looking into the drive-thru portico. Albertsons' original entrance would have been near the left edge of the portico, between La-Z-Boy and Zing! Patio and Billiards.

     And speaking of Zing!, here they are! Zing! (it just feels appropriate to always put the exclamation point after that word every time) occupies the front left corner of the former Albertsons building, where the side entrance and liquor store used to be. Zing! occupies the portion of space originally home to Kincaid Furniture, although it doesn't seem like Kincaid lasted very long in this space (as their space is already sitting empty in the 2011 Google Street View). Zing! opened here by 2014, bringing to Fort Myers their eclectic mix of patio furniture, pool tables, and bar stools (so if you're in the market for a pool table for your new patio bar, I might know of a place that can hook you up!).

     Outside of their store, Zing! had one of these giant Adirondack chairs on display. While I didn't take a selfie sitting in the Adirondack chair this time, I did take a picture of the chair itself. Now if only they had a giant matching pool table to go with this chair!

     Here's a look across the front of the building, as seen from the far left corner. Not much to see here from Albertsons, but Zing's entrance is visible just ahead through the little corridor.

     Staying true to its name, here is the clock tower that gave "Clock Tower Square" its name. However, either the clock is broken or it's just a prop, as the time on the clock doesn't match the time it was when this image was taken (it should read 12:12 if it were accurate).

     Here's the entirety of the modern building's new facade. The doors under the clock tower are just another entrance into the Zing! store, Zing's main entrance under their sign by the Adirondack chair. I didn't bother to venture inside either the La-Z-Boy or Zing! store, as there wasn't anything left to be found from Albertsons inside, and taking a few pictures inside a modern furniture store isn't worth dealing with a bunch of furniture sales people. If there were Albertsons relics left inside I may have considered playing a rousing round of 'dodge the salesperson', but it wasn't worth playing that game here! In case you were curious though, you can see some photos from inside of the Zing! store here. La-Z-Boy just has a bunch of stock photos of furniture on their page, but trust me, you're not missing out on anything in there from what I saw through the window.

     Looking at the front left corner of the building, here's an overview of the broken clock tower decorating the corner.

     Looking down the left side of the building (which faces Colonial Boulevard), we see a side entrance into Zing!, and a number of smaller storefronts beyond that. Zing's side entrance lines up where Albertsons side entrance/liquor store entrance would have been, with the rest of the storefronts beyond that carved out of the building's back left corner.

     Beyond Zing!, most of the storefronts had been combined together to create a home for Sunstate Academy, a local beauty school.

     Lastly, here's a look at the back of the former Albertsons building, which still retains a lot of its former Albertsons characteristics. It appears the stairs to the mezzanine level are still present too, so maybe one of the new tenants preserved that old Skaggs-Albertsons era relic inside. A lot of the beauty school students were hanging around back here on their breaks, so I didn't bother to explore the back of the store any more beyond this one photo to see what else from Albertsons could have been lying around.

     With our ground coverage out of the way, it's now time for our eye in the sky to take over (and I don't mean Chopper Dan - it's Bing Maps Bird's Eye Aerial images filling in instead):

Front - From this angle, it's much easier to tell this was a heavily modified former Albertsons building.

Right Side

Back

Left Side

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

Former Albertsons #4313 - 2021

Former Albertsons #4313 - 2007 - The conversion just wrapping up here

Former Albertsons #4313 - 2006

Albertsons #4313 - 2004 - Not a lot of people out shopping here

Albertsons #4313 - 1999 - Even in 1999 the store still looked pretty dead

Albertsons #4313 - 1995 - A little bit livelier here in 1995, where we can also see the old outparcels facing Colonial Boulevard still standing. All of those would end up being demolished when the intersection of Cleveland and Colonial was upgraded to an interchange in a few years. I also wonder if the reconfiguration of the intersection could have killed off a lot of business for this store (making it harder to get in and out of, as it seems like after the interchange was built business really fell off a cliff here).

Albertsons #4313 - 1984

     And while these satellite images complete my coverage of former Albertsons #4313, as a great salesman once said, "But wait! There's more!":

     While we're in the neighborhood, let's pop across the street and check out the funky old shopping center over there:

     Since the old Albertsons store across the street was a bit lackluster, I decided to hop across South Cleveland Avenue and check out South Plaza to see what kind of history this shopping center might have held. Named for its original location on what was the southern edge of town at the time of its construction, South Plaza opened in 1973 with anchors Woolco, Winn-Dixie, and a small movie theater called South Plaza Cinema.

     Starting at the edge of the plaza closest to South Cleveland Avenue, we find the old Winn-Dixie, which to this day still retains its original Winn-Dixie facade. Opening with the plaza in 1973, Winn-Dixie lasted in this location until 1981, when it was closed outright. After Winn-Dixie closed, this 20,000 square foot space was retenanted with a Cloth World fabric store, which would be bought out by the parent company of Jo-Ann Fabrics in 1994. Jo-Ann stayed in the former Winn-Dixie space until 1998, when they moved into the former Luria's building at the other end of the shopping center (and where Jo-Ann remains to this day).

Photo courtesy of the Lee County Property Appraiser

     After Jo-Ann moved, the old Winn-Dixie was subdivided into a Bealls Outlet and Dockside Imports. Both of these stores remained here until closing somewhere in the 2009-2010 timeframe. Family Dollar took over the old Bealls Outlet space following their closure, and the former Dockside Imports space became a furniture store for a while after, but was sitting empty at the time of my visit. According to the leasing company's website, the former Dockside space is now home to medical offices.

     While I didn't get a picture of the building on this trip, the intersection of Cleveland and Colonial also housed a Publix Food World discount grocery store, originally located here. Publix closed the Food World store in 1982 in favor of a new Publix being built a bit further to the west on Colonial Boulevard (in the Royal Palm Square shopping complex, specifically). With both Publix and Winn-Dixie gone by the early 1980's, Albertsons actually became the last grocery store standing on this corner for a change!

     Pictured above is the strip of stores connecting the old Winn-Dixie to the old Woolco building, part of the old Woolco building visible in the distance.

     I haven't been able to pinpoint the original location of the South Plaza Cinema in the building, but I believe it was located where The Talk of the Town Consignment is located now (as that part of the building is a bit bigger than the rest of the strip).

     When South Plaza was first built in 1973, Woolco occupied a 110,000 square foot building at the very back of the plaza. Woolco remained in the plaza until parent company Woolworth shut down the US Woolco stores in 1983. Following Woolco's closure, the building was swiftly picked up by Zayre, who was in the middle of a large Floridian expansion push. Following a location already in Naples, the new Fort Myers store would be Zayre's second in Southwestern Florida. Zayre took over the leftmost 86,500 square feet of the former Woolco store, with the remaining space on the right side of the building becoming home to a new Luria's catalog showroom. Zayre remained in South Plaza until the company was purchased by Ames in 1988, and Ames closed this store in 1990 as part of the company's retraction from the Florida market. Following the closure of the plaza's anchor tenant, it didn't sit empty for long again. Montgomery Ward announced they would open a new store in the old Ames space, and had their new store open by 1991. I found it interesting that Montgomery Ward took over this building, as not only was the chain in decline by the 1990's, but this was a freestanding location they opened in too. Ward's remodeled the old Ames building and expanded it to the left prior to the store opening, with this location being one of the only new Montgomery Ward stores I know of to open in Florida in the 1990's. Montgomery Ward lasted here until 1999, only a few years before the whole company went out of business. Shortly after Montgomery Ward closed the building was picked up by Burlington Coat Factory, who opened in the space by the end of 1999. Burlington remains in this building today, and has control of the entirety of the former Ward's space.

     Until the last few years, Burlington loved to open up in these large, 80,000+ square foot former discount and department store spaces. However, even for 1999, this old Montgomery Ward was pretty large even for Burlington's taste. Since that was the case, the left side of the building was partitioned off and converted into an MJM Designer Shoe store, which was a short-lived shoe store brand owned by Burlington. MJM closed in 2003, although I did find an old picture of the MJM store, which you can see below:

Photo courtesy of the Lee County Property Appraiser

     Following MJM's closure, this left part of the old Ward's building became home to local organic foods store Ada's Natural Market, which opened in 2005. Ada's moved here from a smaller building further south on Cleveland Avenue. While Ada's new store was successful, the store was forced to close in the late 2000's when the store's owners got involved in some legal troubles. Ada's was reopened by new management in 2011, although the store would end up relocating once again in 2014 to the corner of Cleveland Street and College Parkway, where it resides to this day. Following Ada's relocation this corner of the building has remained empty, as it's a bit of an odd and hidden spot to fill.

     I took a quick photo inside the old Ada's store. At the time I was here I didn't know this history of this corner of the building, so I didn't know what I was going to see through the window! What we do see are very clear remnants of a supermarket though, and no crazy old relics from Ward's.

     Looking away from that corner of the plaza, here's a look at our current major anchor: Burlington. While the interior of the Burlington store has been modernized to the company's latest design, the exterior of the building (as well as the empty space they control that used to house MJM Shoes and Ada's) retains Montgomery Ward's exterior. That funky exterior is what intrigued me about this plaza in the first place, and it ended up sending me on quite the rabbit hold of piecing together the entire history of the plaza. To compare what the building looks like now to when Ward's was here, take a look at these old images from the Fort Myers News-Press that the Sing Oil Blogger pulled for me from newspapers.com:

     Here we have Ward's (and Luria's), pictured shortly after Montgomery Ward opened in 1991. A newly paved and landscaped parking lot completed the scene.

     As we'll see in the upcoming photos, Burlington didn't change much to the exterior, and besides the signage, the building still looks much like this today.

     These days Burlington would rip the facade apart and start from scratch, so it's nice that this store is old enough to where everything from Ward's got to be preserved (at least on the exterior). To the right of Burlington is Jo-Ann, which we'll take a closer look at in a moment.

     Burlington occupies what used to be Ward's main entrance, all of this still looking very much like it did during Ward's time in this space.

     The brickwork along the front of the building looks pretty old, and could possibly date back to the Woolco days. While the exterior of this building is quite vintage of retailers past, the interior looks to be nothing more than the usual modern Burlington.

     Looking at those interior photos, this appears to still be a very large Burlington store. Recently, Burlington has been shrinking their stores or relocating their older, larger stores to smaller buildings, so I'm surprised Burlington modernized this store while keeping its original size. Burlington could easily chop off the right side of the store if they wanted to downsize though, and it even has its own leftover facade from Ward's too!

     I don't quite know what Ward's was going for with this odd little decorative facade on the far right of their store, but it is unique! It almost looks like it could be a garden center based off the design aesthetic, but it is part of the main building, so there's no way it was that. It's too hard to see what the sign over this part of the building read in the old images above, but it looks like it was the entrance into one of Ward's specialty departments (Electric Avenue maybe? - I know that was a big specialty area of theirs).

     And lastly for our tour of South Plaza, we have the Jo-Ann store. Jo-Ann occupies the old Luria's catalog showroom, and recently added the chain's current logo to the facade, replacing the store's original one. I believe the facade is mostly original to Luria's too (minus the additional detailing Jo-Ann added over the entryway), as Luria's older stores weren't the most exciting or unique looking buildings in the world.

     So from an old Albertsons to a deep dive into the history of the shopping center across the street, we had a little bit of everything in today's post! You never know what kind of interesting retail history you'll find out there, and I sure got more than I bargained for out here in Fort Myers! More Albertsons coming up in two weeks, so be sure to come back then to see where we end up next!

So until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger