Former Albertsons #4326 - Tampa, FL (N. Dale Mabry)

Albertsons #4326

8411 N. Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa, FL

Today's post is a presentation of Hillsborough County retail

     Greetings everyone, and I welcome you to this holiest of all Floridian Albertsons stores. For today's sermon post, we'll discuss the father, the son, and the holy spirit of retail past as we see this supermarket building rise up and reembody itself as a humble house of worship. But before we say Amen, we have a bit to discuss about this former Albertsons store, so come with me everyone and let's see what former Albertsons #4326 is all about! (Hallelujah to that!).

Photo courtesy of Google Street View

     Albertsons #4326 opened for business sometime in the fall of 1978 as Tampa's third Albertsons store, following the openings of #4318 in May 1977 and #4321 in January 1978. Unlike the success Albertsons would begin to enjoy across the bay in Pinellas County, Albertsons had a tougher time appealing to the grocery shoppers of Tampa as the years went on, suffering a few early closures in the area (#4321, #4406), and a few stores that failed spectacularly later on (#4445, #4472). Tampa was the hometown of Kash n' Karry from the chain's start all the way through the end of the Sweetbay era, so I've always wondered if Tampa had a higher loyalty to Kash n' Karry compared to other areas, as Albertsons and Kash n' Karry would always go back and forth between the #3 and #4 grocers in Tampa Bay in the 1980's and 1990's. In addition, Tampa was also unique as it was home to a number of U-Save stores during that time too, the only region in Tampa Bay with a presence from that smaller rural South Central Florida-based chain. With Publix and Winn-Dixie being well-established in Tampa by the late 1970's, Kash n' Karry being the hometown chain, and U-Save being another price-conscious option, maybe Albertsons was suffering a bit from being the odd one out amongst the four already well-established, Florida-based grocery chains in town?

Photo courtesy of YonWooRetail2 via Google Street View

     Even with all the trials and tribulations of trying to establish a presence in Tampa, #4326 ended up being a winner amongst all those other failed locations Albertsons had in town. #4326 was Tampa's longest surviving Albertsons store, remaining open until October 8, 2011 for a respectable 33 year run - that's 31 years and 9 months longer than #4406 right up the road from here lasted! While Albertsons had a hard time appealing to shoppers in other parts of Tampa, this store at the corner of N. Dale Mabry and W. Waters was a survivor, and did well enough to have received a decent remodel to the company's Grocery Palace interior around the turn of the new millennium. That remodel was when the store's exterior was redesigned into what it looks like now, the common 2000's exterior update to these 1970's Albertsons stores.

Photo courtesy of YonWooRetail2 via Google Street View

     While Albertsons remodeled the facade over the side entrance, the remainder of the right side of the building kept its 1970's design all the way to the end. Even today the original 1970's elements from this building's early days still remain, however the church painted over most of them prior to moving in.

Photo courtesy of Christopher M. on Foursquare

     Since this store lasted until 2011, I managed to find two interior photos. These aren't the best or most comprehensive photos of this store's interior, but it's something, and they also confirmed for me that this store had Grocery Palace when it closed. The photo above looks across the store's back wall during one of its final days, as we look across the empty dairy cases toward the store's back left corner, where produce was located.

Photo courtesy of Derek D. on Foursquare

     The other interior photo I found was this oddly positioned photo of the produce department, which gives us a nice glimpse at one of the old Grocery Palace produce graphics. Grocery Palace produce departments were supposed to mimic a rustic farmers' market feel, with the graphics designed to look like old pictures painted on the side of wooden produce crates.

     So from selling bottled water to blessing us with holy water, we return to the present to take a closer look at this building it its reborn state at CityLife Church. The old Albertsons building didn't sit empty very long following the store's closure in 2011, with CityLife Church up and running in here by the Summer of 2012. With such a quick transition, it's almost like it was God's plan all along for the church to open up here! The Tampa Churchbertsons is actually one of three such conversions in Florida, the other two holy Albertsons stores being #4379 in Orlando and #4478 in Estero.

     CityLife Church did very little to the exterior of the old Albertsons store, although the interior was completely gutted and rebuilt (however, as to why the church has a model of the Millennium Falcon hanging over the auditorium, that I can't explain, but hallelujah, amen, and may the force be with you!).

     Albertsons' old automatic doors were swapped out for manual ones when the church moved in, otherwise the doors remained in the same location as they did following the store's Grocery Palace remodel. The windows along the front of the building are from Albertsons too, those being a carryover from the 1970's Skaggs design. A lot of these older Skaggs-era Albertsons stores had their windows covered over in later remodels, so it was nice to see the windows survived at this location.

     The recessed can lights and the design of the windows just scream early 2000's Albertsons, don't they? That random support pole in the middle of the walkway appears to be the point where the original Skaggs facade used to end, with Albertsons carving out this little pocket and extending the canopy during the Grocery Palace remodel.

     As we move away from the entryway, the original 1970's elements begin to become more apparent once again:

     The left side of the facade still retains its original 1970's design, which carries over to the left side of the building as well:

     Even though the church stuccoed over the original river rock panels, the 1970's Albertsons design aesthetic lives on over here.

     River rocks or no river rocks, this is still obviously the wall of a former Albertsons.

     Photographing a gray painted building on a gray cloudy morning doesn't make for the most cheerful photos, does it? While it began to drizzle after I got in my car to head to the next stop of the day, my prayers were answered and the rain broke, and the rest of this day turned out to be quite nice.

     Rounding the corner, we'll take a look at the right side of this former Albertsons store, the old side and liquor store entrance coming into view.

     While many early 2000's Albertsons remodels involved moving the pharmacy into this corner of the building, in addition to building a larger liquor store that usually resulted in the loss of the side entrance, that didn't happen here. Most likely, when this store remodeled to Grocery Palace, the pharmacy was moved into an island by the front entrance as we'd see in a Grocery Palace newbuild, relocating from the back right corner of the building.

     CityLife Church still uses Albertsons side entrance as a side entrance into the church, however, I'd have to imagine the church is not using the old liquor store space for such a use anymore!

     For an interesting perspective, here's a look at the building from behind, looking from the back right corner toward the old side entrance. The old loading docks were just out of frame to my right, which the church appears to have removed and partially enclosed to build a garage.

     While that's all I have to share about this Churchbertsons, we'll stick around the property for just a moment. While Albertsons was the first store to build on this corner in 1978, a new shopping center would sprout up behind it a few years later in 1987. While Albertsons was never an official anchor to that shopping center, it almost looks like they were unofficially due to the way the center was built, so while we're here, let's check out that shopping center and see what it's all about:

     Originally named Fashion Square, the 300,000 square foot shopping center we see above was built in a somewhat unusual shape to fit behind the existing Albertsons store and a pond. Upon its opening in 1987, Fashion Square tried to position itself as a pseudo-outlet mall, relying on a tenant mix of various off-price clothing stores with some other stores thrown in.

     The ad seen above also admits that Fashion Square's location was a bit unusual, stating that center was "a little hard to find, but worth it" (and using the Albertsons as a landmark). The majority of Fashion Square's original tenant roster is listed toward the bottom of that ad, and like all of these ads dispersed throughout this post, if you click on the photo you can view the easier to read full-size versions.

     However, prior to the center's opening, the leasing company had much more pleasant things to say about Fashion Square's location! While this is a very busy intersection, the shopping center is tucked back a bit from both N. Dale Mabry and W. Waters, making it hard to see from either road. While this corner is a prime spot for retail, the visibility issues probably caused this shopping center's decline into what we'll be seeing today. Driving along busy N. Dale Mabry, all the trees from the pond block the center from view, with a large tower sign being the only clue the shopping center is back there. While the modern Fashion Square, now called Fountain Oaks, isn't withering away in a state of near-abandonment, it's not the vibrant retail complex it used to be.

     Fashion Square was built in the style of 1980's "affordable chic" - mixing a number of trendy new off-price stores with upscale architecture, a design I've seen quite a bit with other power centers built around the same time. According to the article above, Fashion Square's architecture was based off the design of stores from the famous Worth Avenue on the Island of Palm Beach, one of the ritziest shopping districts in the United States. Fashion Square's builders imported tiles from China and lighting fixtures from Germany to adorn the new shopping center, creating a building worthy of Gucci and Prada, but with a more budget-friendly tenant line-up in mind. According to the developers, an attractive looking shopping center would get more leases signed, and attract more people to shop there than a plain looking shopping center would (if only developers still thought that today, with all these boring gray boxes going up everywhere!).

     While Fashion Square opened to a grand fanfare, the shopping center's location and anchor line-up wasn't helping its future. Ross Dress for Less left Fashion Square sometime around 1992, possibly consolidating with a new store further up Dale Mabry that opened in 1991. Lionel Playworld, the center's largest tenant, declared bankruptcy in 1993 and liquidated its remaining stores that same year. Some of the other off-price fashion chains in the center began to fade away around that time as well, as the off-price trend popularized in the late 1980's began to stabilize by the early 1990's as the clear winners in that field (like TJMaxx, Marshalls, and Ross) began to emerge. By 1996, Fashion Square was having a vacancy problem. In response, the center was renamed to its current modern moniker of Fountain Oaks, gearing the center away from its past as a fashion hub into its future as a mixed-used center with variety of retail, entertainment, and service options. That's essentially how Fountain Oaks operates today, although the retail options in the center today are only a small fraction of the center's leasable space compared to the non-retail uses.

     We'll take a quick spin around the shopping center by taking a look at the anchor spaces, with a few other scenes appearing for good measure. We'll walk Fashion Square starting at its northwesternmost corner, where we find Marshalls:

     The only tenant left in Fashion Square from the beginning, Marshalls opened this store on October 9, 1987, the first store to open in the complex. The Fashion Square Marshalls was the company's first store in the Tampa Bay area, opening during the time when Marshalls was still an independent chain (Marshalls didn't become a part of TJMaxx until 1995). The article above from Fashion Square's grand opening included a picture of the new Marshalls store, which hasn't changed much from the exterior besides receiving the chain's modern logo and some blue accent paint.

     To the right of Marshalls are these storefronts, showcasing some of the original "upscale chic" architecture designed to mimic a number of downtown storefronts cobbled together. While there would have been a variety of stores in this part of the center in the late 1980's, today we have a college occupying most of the space between Marshalls and the former Ross, with a rug store and hearing aid center closer toward Ross's old space.

     Just by looking at the ad above, didn't Ross seem so much classier back in the late 1980's? Anonymous from Houston shared a link with me to a Ross commercial from 1988 a while back, digitized from his own personal VHS collection. In that ad you can see how Ross stores came off as being a bit nicer (or at least more organized) back then than they are now, but I digress!

     Anyway, the Fashion Square Ross opened on November 9, 1987, featuring all those great specials you can see above (like some Oscar de la Renta eau de toilette splash for $26 - even the merchandise Ross sold back then sounded classier!).

     Ross's store was located back in the corner of the complex, probably one of the worst spots in the center visibility-wise. Searching newspapers.com, I lose all references to Ross having a store here after 1992, so it seems that was about the time they closed, with another article confirming Ross was gone by 1996. Ross opened a new store 5 miles north of here in 1991 in a new shopping center featuring Jewel-Osco and Target, so I wonder if that more prominent location was intended to take over for this one if it was preforming poorly. I don't know what occupied this space immediately following Ross's departure, but the local Head Start agency used this space for a while in the late 2000's. Currently, a company that develops tests for various agencies occupies the left side of the building, with the right side currently vacant.

     The largest anchor in Fashion Square was Lionel Playworld, also tucked into the back portion of the shopping center just down the line from Ross. It appears Lionel Playworld opened around November 1, 1988, starting off with a bang by raffling off a brand new 1988 Yugo! Hopefully the person who won that Yugo had many wonderful miles of pushing it around town after taking it home. Outside of the tantalizing thought of winning a Yugo, lots of other classic toys were on special for the grand opening day shoppers (like the Speak & Spell, Duplo Bricks, and the Fisher Price Grand Piano), and I'm sure the kids were much more interested in those offerings over the thought of winning a Yugo!

     Lionel Playworld went bankrupt in 1993 and closed all of its stores shortly after, with its former Fashion Square location now housing a church (much like the former Albertsons out front).

     Besides the paint color, none of the facades in this shopping center have been altered since it was built in 1987, so what we see here is exactly what all these stores looked like back in the day. With the shopping center using custom architecture, the facades were all a bit non-standard for these various chains, but it's still interesting the architecture has remained unchanged all these years later.

     Being "Fashion Square", clothing stores were quite abundant here. In the late 1980's there was a glut of off-price chains starting up to take advantage of the hot new retailing craze, many of which faded into obscurity shortly after. Fashions for Nine seems to be one of those chains that came and went without much of a trace, as I can't find much of anything about this chain online. It appears this store went with a theme of everything sold being $9, so I sure there were plenty of bargains to be had here (like the advertised acrylic jogging suits) and at the company's two other Tampa Bay locations listed at the bottom.

     Fashions for Nine was located in the inner portion of the shopping center that wrapped around the back and left sides of the Albertsons building, where Gold's Gym is now. Gold's Gym opened in the mid-1990's, around the time of the center's rebranding to Fountain Oaks.

     Kobe Steaks was another prominent tenant in Fashion Square upon its opening. I'm not sure if the Fashion Square Kobe Steaks was related to the current Kobe Steakhouse chain from Orlando or not, which is a Benihana-style restaurant that sounds pretty similar to what's described in the ad above. Regardless of ownership, the Kobe Steaks at Fashion Square didn't last very long, as I lose trace of it in newspaper ads after 1989, so I assume the knives stopped flying through the air sometime around then.

     These days, the old Kobe Steaks restaurant is home to a Dollar Tree - a quite stately looking Dollar Tree too, however, I wouldn't trust any steaks that were sold out of this building these days!

     For one last look at the current Fashion Square, the photo above shows us a portion of the inner part of the complex that wraps around the left side of the former Albertsons building. This part of the plaza is home to some smaller storefronts, and these days, these businesses were primarily offices of various kinds.

     The former Albertsons and Fashion Square was my first stop of the day. I got out here pretty early, and had some time to kill before my next stop opened for the day. In light of the extra time, I ended up grabbing a drink at a (now closed) coffee shop that opened in the former Payless ShoeSource in front of the Albertsons, and did a few laps around Fashion Square for a little morning exercise. Toward the end of my walk I stopped by the pond that separates Fashion Square from N. Dale Mabry, and found some ducks and white ibises enjoying the morning as well, in addition to an egret splashing around in the water (who hopefully wasn't going to stir up any alligators!) A washed-up shopping center in North Tampa is probably a strange place to enjoy a leisurely morning, but it was quite calming over here with how quiet the place was so early in the morning!

     Now that we're nearing the end of this post, it's time for the satellite imagery, starting off with some Bird's Eye aerial images courtesy of my friends by the pond above Bing Maps:

Front

Right Side

Back

Left Side

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

Former Albertsons #4326 - 2022

Former Albertsons #4326 - 2012 - Looks like some of the Church's remodel work may have been progressing at this time.

Albertsons #4326 - 2010

Albertsons #4326 - 2010

Albertsons #4326 - 1995 - Pre-Grocery Palace remodel

Albertsons #4326 - 1982 - The land that would become Fashion Square was still a citrus grove at this time.

Future Albertsons #4326 - 1969

     As CityLife Church, at least former Albertsons #4326 seems to be having a prosperous afterlife, transitioning from offering literal bread and wine to the metaphorical kind now. While a second coming of Albertsons in Florida to save us from Publix is probably a longshot to pray for, Florida is a place where crazy things seem to happen with supermarkets, as I'm sure God himself didn't even see Aldi swooping in to buy Winn-Dixie. But will that deal be our Floridian supermarket savior? That I don't know, but hopefully it won't have us repenting!

Anyway, that's all I have for today's sermon post, so until our congregation meets again,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger

*Amen*