Former Albertsons #4368 - Indian Harbour Beach, FL - 10 Years Later

Albertsons #4368 / Winn-Dixie #2328

961 E. Eau Gallie Blvd., Melbourne (Indian Harbour Beach), FL - Ocean Springs Shopping Center

Today's post is a presentation of Brevard County retail

What's Old is New Again

     Welcome everyone to the first store tour of my special 10 Years of AFB posting series! To kick off this series, what better way to do so than to revisit the store which also happened to be the subject of AFB's very first store tour (which occurred way back on March 1, 2014). Since that post went live roughly 9 years and 9 months ago, we'll see quite a bit has changed here at former Albertsons #4368 in Indian Harbour Beach, FL, one of the small beachside communities on Southern Brevard County's barrier island. While we'll be seeing some changes to the paint and decor around the building since our last visit, hopefully you'll also notice that my writing and photography skills have improved quite a bit since that original post went live back in 2014! So in relation to the building itself and my posts, what's old is new again today, so let's jump on in and give former Albertsons #4368 the modern AFB treatment:

Photo courtesy of YonWooRetail2

     Albertsons #4368 opened for business sometime around July 27, 1988. July 27th was the date the local Florida Today newspaper reported this store in the "New Businesses" column, so the grand opening had to have occurred within a few days (if not the same day) of that report. Located in a new shopping center with its co-anchor Wal-Mart, the Indian Harbour Beach Albertsons had set up shop on a prime piece of real estate located directly across the street from the beach. The entire length of East Eau Gallie Boulevard from where it enters the barrier island at South Patrick Drive and ends at Route A1A serves as the primary commercial corridor for the Southern Brevard barrier island, a little retail oasis for locals who don't want to make the trek to the larger shopping areas over on the mainland. In the late 1980's, Albertsons was one of 4 grocery stores in the general area, with Winn-Dixie and Publix having stores just to the west of here on East Eau Gallie, and a Goodings just north of here on A1A in a former Florida Choice.

Photo courtesy of YonWooRetail2

     While all seemed pretty good for grocery stores on the barrier island in the late 1980's, by the late 1990's, things seemed to take a turn for the worst. In 1996, Winn-Dixie closed its store on East Eau Gallie, followed by the closure of all of Gooding's Brevard County stores a year later in 1997. In 1998, Albertsons followed suit, announcing the closure of its Indian Harbour Beach store. Closing almost exactly 10 years to the day later, the Indian Harbour Beach Albertsons closed for good on July 27, 1998. According to the article above, Albertsons closed this store because it "just wasn't able to get the customer acceptance we were looking for," per a corporate spokeswoman, who then refused to go into more detail about the reasons for closure. Lasting for almost exactly 10 years, it seems like the store's lease was up, and sales volume wasn't justifying a renewal. Albertsons has closed stores at the 10 year mark a number of times in the past (like this store, for example), as it seems like that was the company's prime time for deciding if a store should stay or go back in the 1980's and 1990's. 

Photo courtesy of hmaxhanson

     Upon the closure of Albertsons in July 1998, Indian Harbour Beach now had three empty grocery stores to fill. Around the time Albertsons announced its closure, rumors began to swirl that Winn-Dixie was interested in the space. Only a few months later in November 1998, those rumors were confirmed, and Winn-Dixie announced that a new 58,000 square foot Marketplace store would be replacing the old Albertsons.

Photo courtesy of hmaxhanson

     Winn-Dixie's return to Indian Harbour Beach brought much relief to locals, who now only had a Publix nearby to shop at. The new 58,000 square foot Winn-Dixie Marketplace was to be a "showplace retail space", featuring such frills like a "dry cleaner, pharmacy, photo lab, and gourmet delicatessen". When they first opened, the Marketplace stores of the late 1990's were a sight to behold, especially the Food Pavilion stores like the one at that link. As far as I'm aware, the Indian Harbour Beach Marketplace was never a Food Pavilion store, as its floorplan follows that of the more stripped-down late-1990's Marketplace builds. However, when this store opened on August 5, 1999, I'm sure it was still an impressive sight of what a supermarket for the new millennium would look like.

     Also in the article above, one of the shoppers interviewed said jokingly to the reporter that "maybe Publix could set up an annex there," in reference to the vacant original Indian Harbour Beach Winn-Dixie across the street from the Publix store. With Publix being the only grocery store in the area, she was complaining about how the Publix was always so crowded at the time, and that was her somewhat snarky response for how to address the situation. Sometimes there's truth in humor, as come 2006, Publix did exactly what the lady said and ripped down the vacant Winn-Dixie for a new modern store. While the new Publix was a replacement for the old one across the street and not a true annex, it's still interesting how that comment made back in 1999 seemingly predicted the future!

     Even though it's a blurry Google Streetview image from 2007, this was all I could find in relation to what the new Indian Harbour Beach Winn-Dixie looked like on the exterior during its Marketplace days. In the year-long conversion of this store, its interior was completely gutted and rebuilt, as after stepping inside you'd think you were in any other late-1990's built Winn-Dixie. However, outside of consolidating Albertsons' dual side-facing entrances into a single entrance in the middle of the building, as well as adding that point to the roofline for the old Marketplace-era diamond logo, the exterior of this building hasn't changed at all since Albertsons built it in 1988.

     In the late 2000's, the Indian Harbour Beach Winn-Dixie was remodeled to the Post-Bankruptcy interior, which is the interior we saw when we first toured this store back in 2014, and when we made a quick revisit back in 2016.

     Returning to the present in 2023, our latest revisit to the Indian Harbour Beach Winn-Dixie will showcase this store with its current Winn Win decor, which this store remodeled to in the Summer of 2021. The 2021 remodel, while not super fancy, did a nice job of cleaning this store up, as a lot of the remaining Post-Bankruptcy decor stores were looking a bit rough around the edges of late. While the Post-Bankruptcy decor was a nice decor during its prime in the late 2000's, it wasn't a very durable one, and a lot of stores that hung onto Post-Bankruptcy into the early 2020's have been plagued with broken signs and pieces falling off the wall. However, with the recent remodel wave, while I haven't done an official count, I can't imagine there being more than 10 or so stores left in the chain with Post-Bankruptcy as of late 2023. For what was once Winn-Dixie's most widespread decor package prior to the Down Down/Winn Win-era, that's a pretty good effort at trying to clean up the existing store base.

     To me, the exterior of this store looks much nicer with the current logo and Winn Win paint scheme compared to the old Post-Bankruptcy one. The new logo is bigger than the one it replaced, and the red and white accents make the facade pop more than the old yellow and brown paint scheme did.

     Stepping inside, let's shop 'n' roll Melbourne! While I keep calling this store the Indian Harbour Beach Winn-Dixie (as that's what most people refer to it as), Indian Harbour Beach's southern boundary is officially across the street from this shopping center. This side of Eau Gallie Boulevard (home to the Winn-Dixiesons) officially falls within a small beachside enclave of the City of Melbourne (the rest of which is on the mainland), and for Winn-Dixie's signage, they opted to stick within the official political boundaries for that designation. However, at least this time around the signage is accurate, as during the Post-Bankruptcy days, the signage referred to this store as the Melbourne Beach Winn-Dixie. Melbourne Beach is a totally separate city a few miles south of here, and I think someone in the decor department in Jacksonville didn't realize that Melbourne Beach was something totally different from a store located in Melbourne that happened to be next to the beach! Oh well, if you're confused about what jurisdiction this store is in and what to refer to it as, just call it the "Beachside Winn-Dixie" - the locals will know what you mean!

     Stepping inward just a bit from the cart corral, we see the floral department just beyond the carts, followed by produce in the building's front right corner. The cart corral and the floral department are located in what would have originally been Albertsons' right side vestibule. Albertsons' doors would have been located on the short wall where the balloon display is now (to the left of the "Give your room some bloom" sign), with the front wall extending to that pole before opening up to let shoppers pass into the main store.

     The remains of the right side vestibule are the only indication from the interior that this store was something else prior to Winn-Dixie, and even then those remains are pretty subtle and probably wouldn't stand out to anyone unless you were really well versed in how a late 1980's Albertsons was laid out. Outside of that, the interior of this store looks like any other late 1990's Winn-Dixie Marketplace. The interior was totally rebuilt by Winn-Dixie - the floors, the lights, the ceiling - everything was installed new. Unlike the Holiday Winn-Dixie we saw not too long ago inside former Albertsons #4324 (which kept a small amount of the Albertsons interior feel alive after a pretty intense remodel), Winn-Dixie decided to start fresh here in Indian Harbour Beach...

     …fresh indeed. For those of you who always wondered what grocers meant by the Fresh Departments, here you go, the "Fresh" department in the flesh! One quirk about the Winn Win decor is that it doesn't actually sign the produce department as "Produce" - Produce only gets the "Fresh" sign as its main label, with the slogan on the opposite wall stating "The freshest daily" on Produce's unique green backdrop - a bit of a contrast to the red on the walls throughout the rest of the store. Regardless of how it's signed, produce occupies the front right corner of the building. When Albertsons was here, the deli counter would have been located to my right, with the photo above looking straight into the Albertsons bakery counter. Produce would have been further down the grand aisle, stretching from the end of the bakery into the back right corner (where Winn-Dixie's beer department is now).

     From produce, here's a look across the front of the store. While it seems pretty wide, this store isn't much larger than a typical late 1990's Marketplace store Winn-Dixie would have built themselves, with this former Albertsons being 58,000 square feet compared to the typical 55,000 square feet for a late 1990's Marketplace build. For fun, here's what this store's front end would have looked similar to back in its Albertsons configuration, compared to the typical late 1990's Winn-Dixie design we see here today.

     The right side of the building is still home to the service department "grand aisle", although configured much differently than Albertsons would have had it arranged. With Winn-Dixie's current configuration, the deli and bakery are located along the right wall. The sliced cold cuts are the first area along the wall following produce, followed by "The Kitchen" and then the bakery.

     Here's a close-up of the store's bakery counter, with a refrigerated case for chilled cakes located in front.

     Beer and wine is poking out from the back right corner of the building, although we'll get a closer look at that department in just a moment.

     A specialty cheese counter occupies this small island across from the bakery. While late 1990's Marketplace Winn-Dixies would have had a specialty cheese counter, the counter we see here was installed during this store's Post-Bankruptcy remodel in the late 2000's, probably the replacement for the Marketplace-era counter that would have been located in the middle of the grand aisle. Specialty cheese counters weren't a common feature to be installed in a Post-Bankruptcy remodel, and this store's slightly larger size and location in the relatively well-off Brevard County Beachside area probably kept the cheese counter alive. The Winn Win remodel didn't change much to the counter besides the addition of the floating "Cheese" sign, as Post-Bankruptcy didn't have a sign of its own for the counter (and floating signs like that aren't a common sight in Winn Win stores either). While this counter doesn't appear to be staffed anymore, it's still fully stocked with specialty cheeses.

     What better place to put the cheese counter than next to the wine? Beer and Wine follows the bakery and the cheese counter, and is located in the back right corner of the building.

     In addition to the wall signage, Beer & Wine also has a square overhead sign, the typical overhead signage design used in Winn Win for the store's various specialty departments.

     The wall curves around in the back right corner of the building, in a similar manner to how Albertsons' Superstore-era produce departments would too (although I don't have a great photo of that design still in-tact, but in that linked photo you can see remnants). While this seems like a potential Albertsons remnant, I've seen other late 1990's Winn-Dixie Marketplace stores with a similar curved beer department like this back here. However, it's still interesting to see the similarly between the two designs!

     Finding ourselves along the store's back wall, we find the meat and seafood departments. The meat and seafood service counter is roughly in the same location where Albertsons' used to be, with meat coolers following the counter toward the left, in a similar fashion to Albertsons as well.

     A spacious actionway runs along the back of the building, lined down the center with some of Winn-Dixie's famous coffin coolers (which I don't believe are new, just repainted during the Winn Win remodel).

     The first grocery aisle we'll cut down is aisles 3 and 4, a double aisle home to sodas in the back half (pictured above), and seasonal in the front half (pictured below).

     A pallet of Winn-Dixie's famous Chek cola rests in the middle of the aisle as we look toward the seasonal merchandise half of this wide aisle. It will be interesting to see what Aldi's plans are for Chek sodas, as Chek is arguably one of Winn-Dixie's most valuable house brands. As we saw in the original post about this store, Chek soda has one of the widest selections of flavors of any supermarket house brand of soda I've ever seen, and gets as much (if not more) shelf space than Coke or Pepsi. It's popular stuff, and who knows, maybe it will become Aldi's new house brand of soda.

     Like most late 1990's Marketplace stores, the grocery aisles are cut in half by this center aisle, which runs the entire width of the building. With the aisle markers on both sides designed to face the center aisle, you get a nice perspective shot of them closing in on the dairy sign on the left wall, which lines up perfectly with the center aisle (thank you decor designers for keeping that proper alignment in mind!).

     Following the meat coolers, we find the remaining subcategories of meat - the frozen and lunch kinds - before the back wall transitions into dairy in the back left corner of the building.

     The frozen food aisles are located in the center of the building, just like Albertsons would have had one of these stores arranged. However, the frozen food aisle of this store has changed quite a bit since Winn-Dixie opened, as it would have originally looked more like this. As part of the Winn Win remodel, it appears the freezers were given new doors and trim, as looking at this image, I think those are still the original freezers, just tastefully modernized.

     The curse of the inherited building gives us some support columns down the middle of the cereal aisle, leaving a tight squeeze between the column and the Cheerios.

     Canned vegetables and rice pictured here in aisle 10...

     …with health and beauty only a few steps further down. While not a true "double aisle", the shorter shelf in the middle of the aisle gives off a similar impression, with additional health and beauty products spilling over from this area into the store's last aisle across from dairy as well. Health and Beauty also got an overhead sign in this store, one of only 3 departments in here to get one (the others being Beer and Wine, which we saw already, and a super special one we'll see in a moment).

     Here's another look at the store's back wall, this time as seen from the left side of the building. The floor tiling we see in here is all left over from the store's late 2000's Post-Bankruptcy remodel, including the wood-style tile we also saw back in produce. In most Post-Bankruptcy stores, Winn-Dixie didn't bother swapping on the flooring, as the muted colors of Post-Bankruptcy's design don't clash too bad with the new Winn Win decor. Thankfully stores that remodeled from Marketplace to Winn Win had the more garish examples of the funky Marketplace tiling ripped out and replaced with plain white tiles, preventing a disaster like this from occurring (which Down Down remodels were notorious for).

     Paper products are presented perfectly pristine in aisle 14.

     Now that we're on the opposite side of the store, here's a reverse view down the store's center cut-through aisle. We get a similar effect from the aisle markers from this side, but sadly the Bakery sign isn't lined up as perfectly with the aisle like the dairy one was!

     The store's last aisle, aisle 15, is home to dairy coolers on the left, with the remainder of health and beauty and PB&J supplies opposite (kind of a weird combination of stuff).

     Leaving the dairy department and the last aisle, we find this store's Sand & Surf department. The Sand & Surf department is a special department reserved for Winn-Dixie stores within close proximity to the beach, although it never really got any signage of its own until the Down Down era. This store's Sand & Surf department is a very tasteful reuse of the store's former pharmacy space, one of the many pharmacies Winn-Dixie purged back in a 2016 pharmacy closure wave (and if you're curious, here's what the pharmacy looked like when it was open). Albertsons' pharmacy would have been located in this same area in the front left corner of the building, just arranged differently.

     The prior photo does a much better job of showcasing the special Sand & Surf hanging sign in more detail, as the sign is complete with cartoon beach graphics including a Winn-Dixie logo surfboard. Those same cartoon graphics from the sign carry over onto the backing graphics on the wall over the old pharmacy counter, although the overhead spotlights washed out those graphics in a good portion of the above photo. I thought it was neat Winn-Dixie created special graphics for this department, which I can't imagine is in a lot of stores.

     I also managed to catch the store's impulse banana rack in this photo, showcasing the price of 69 cents per pound for those keeping track. 69 cents per pound is the going rate for bananas in Florida these days at Winn-Dixie and Publix, although Aldi and Super Target will typically have them for 55-59 cents a pound (and those two are typically the cheaper banana options around here).

     Sun, surf, and bananas aside, here's one final look across the store's front end as we finish up our interior tour of this Winn-Dixiesons.

     The customer service desk is located in what used to be Albertsons's left side vestibule, with the kiosk alcove presumable the former home of the Winn-Dixie photo counter or the dry cleaners mentioned in the grand opening article.

     "'Til next time! Take it easy!", we're cheerfully told as we walk toward the store's exit, with the arrangement of the doors at this store unique compared to that of a typical late 1990's Marketplace store, stemming from the way the entrance was carved out of the middle of Albertsons' existing facade.

     Back outside, the morning sun shines down on the architectural remains of this former Albertsons building. Winn-Dixie has done a nice job keeping this store up to date, and even though it's not a funky Albertsons-esque interior inside, it's certainly a nicer example of a Winn-Dixie.

     Strolling toward the liquor store, here's a look at the wall that once contained Albertsons' right side entrance doors. When Albertsons was here, this scene would have looked more like this. Even though the old vestibule doors and windows were walled in, the recessed can lights in the ceiling are a remnant from Albertsons. I can tell they're a remnant because there are two lights above the walled-off entrance - representing the light that was above each door.

     Turning around to look the other way, we see the entrance to the liquor store. Winn-Dixie replaced the liquor store doors with their own, although Winn-Dixie's doors are configured just like Albertsons' would have been. The liquor store was also rebuilt by Winn-Dixie before moving in, but managed to keep much of the same floorplan from Albertsons (as it is a tiny space, so there wasn't much that could be changed). That linked photo shows the liquor store with Post-Bankruptcy, but it too has Winn Win now (I just couldn't find any current interior photos online).

     Replace Winn-Dixie's sign with one that says "Liquor" in the blue Introspect font and repaint the building beige, and we'd be back to 1996 here.

     Of all the 70-something Publixsons stores out there, ironically, it was one of the 3 Winn-Dixiesons that kicked off AFB almost 10 years ago! It's somewhat fitting though that this blog began with a Winn-Dixiesons, as it's certainly been interesting watching and documenting the changes at Winn-Dixie over the last decade, and how that chain went from the lows of bankruptcy in 2018 to the shocking turnaround of the early 2020's (and the even more shocking sale to Aldi announced this year). How Aldi will continue to operate Winn-Dixie will be one of the big things to keep track of as we enter 2024 and 2025 (Winn-Dixie's centennial year), as I still can't decide if this deal is a blessing or a curse, or figure out what Aldi's long term plans for Winn-Dixie are. A strange pairing like that of Winn-Dixie and Aldi sounds about right for Floridian retail, as one thing I have learned writing this blog for the last 10 years is this - if something strange is going to happen, it's going to be in Florida!

     While that's all I have for this post, the party continues next Sunday as we explore another store as part of the blog's 10th Anniversary celebration, so be sure to come back next week for that.

So until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blog