A Winn Win for Aldi - Not So Much for Winn-Dixie

Winn-Dixie #632 / Future Aldi #632

6902 S. Florida Avenue, Lakeland, FL - Imperial Christina Plaza

Today's post is a presentation of Polk County retail

     Over the last few posts we've talked about Albertsons, we've talked about what Publix has been up to recently, and last but certainly not least, it's time to talk about the big news everybody has been interested in these last few months - the Winn-Dixie to Aldi conversions. Ever since rumblings of the first conversions began to break this past May, it's been a near constant watch as Aldi's chosen victims locations trickle out one by one, the agony of "which one will be next?" captivating everyone in the Southeastern retail community like the plot of a television crime drama. Supposedly, per Aldi's statement following the completion of their purchase of Southeastern Grocers in March 2024, around 50 Winn-Dixie and Harvey's locations are to be selected for conversion to the Aldi brand by the end of 2024. As of mid-September 2024, your Southeastern Retail Bloggers have scraped up 47 of the stores that are confirmed to be converting to an Aldi - those chosen locations can be viewed over on MFR in our regularly-updated rolling list of announced conversions. Aldi has been very tight-lipped on what stores they're choosing to convert, and if it weren't for some local news sites picking up on individual store closure announcements, as well as us searching local building permit portals and tips from fellow blog readers, we would have never been able to compile that (mostly exhaustive) list of stores converting to Aldi, as corporate sure doesn't seem to want to put such a list together! As we near that previously reported target of 50 conversions throughout the Winn-Dixie and Harvey's chains (a target I feel will be surpassed at the rate conversions keep popping up), we'll keep on top of what Aldi wants to do with Winn-Dixie and Harvey's going forward. Only time will tell if more conversions will begin to trickle out as we enter 2025, if things stabilize and stay status quo, if the remaining stores get sold off, or who knows what else - Aldi hasn't even owned Southeastern Grocers for a full year now, so there's still a lot of uncertainly on what Aldi's ultimate goals for SEG are. We'll keep on top of Winn-Dixie as that particular chain prepares to enter its 100th year in business next year, but for now, let's divert our conversation back to the topic of the stores that have already had their fates sealed, traveling 3 miles down the road from where we left off last time...

Photo courtesy of LKLD Now

     Our story today brings us back to Lakeland, to the very southern extents of what most locals would consider Lakeland too (as I believe south of this shopping center, most addresses begin to use Mulberry as the city instead of Lakeland, with Mulberry being the small town located just a few more miles to the south if you stay on Route 37). Revealed in a July 2024 Lakeland Retro Facebook post after a contributor submitted a photo of the store closing banner out front, the South Lakeland Winn-Dixie was our first confirmed Winn-Dixie to Aldi conversion in the Florida Peninsula (following the reveal of a few other conversions in the Panhandle and outside of Florida in May and June 2024). Having been in Lakeland just a week before that Facebook post came to light, I wish I had thought to swing by here for a quick revisit, but on that day my mind was too focused on squeezing in a final visit to Publix #356 - the only supermarket in Lakeland I knew had an expiration date on it at the time! However, at the time this store closed, it had been remodeled to the Winn Win decor as part of Winn-Dixie's big remodel spree of the early 2020's. While a final visit right before the end would have been nice to see how the remodel turned out, what would have bothered me even more was if I had not thought to visit this store before the Winn Win remodel happened. Why you ask? Pre-Winn Win, this store was a very rare example of a Winn-Dixie Marketplace that remodeled to the early 2000's Purple/Maroon decor, making it unique in a number of ways. Thankfully I did manage to visit this store once while it still sported its rare early 2000's look, a design that made this store much more special compared to how it spent its last couple years in operation.

Article clippings courtesy of the Lakeland Ledger

     Before we go into more detail about this store's demise, it's best we first talk about its origins, right? While this store looks like a mid-1990's Marketplace from the facade, don't let that fool you - this store is actually a bit older than it looks! The South Lakeland Winn-Dixie opened for business on August 30th, 1984, following a year of construction. In the late 1970's and early 1980's, South Lakeland was seeing a development boom, as former farm and phosphate mining lands were being sold to developers for the construction of new neighborhoods, inching Lakeland even closer to forming a seamless suburban transition with the town of Mulberry to its south. With all of the new homes being built in the South Lakeland, that was attracting the development of retail as well, such as Publix's fancy new Food World prototype in 1977, a new Albertsons in 1978, and not to be left out, Winn-Dixie as the anchor store to the new Imperial Christina Plaza in 1984. Winn-Dixie's new 35,000 square foot store was the largest and most deluxe format the company had at the time, featuring "a fresh seafood department, a service meat department that allows customers to special order certain cuts, a natural foods selection, an international cheese department, an expanded health and beauty aids line, and more non-foods items in general." Quite the fancy Winn-Dixie for 1984, although some of those nicer amenities probably reflected the more upscale image the Imperial Christina neighborhood (which the shopping center was named after) was going for.

Winn-Dixie #632 shortly after its grand opening in 1984 - Photo courtesy of the Lakeland Ledger

     While this store had all kinds of fancy frills inside, it looked like most other Winn-Dixie stores from the mid-1980's as far as its exterior design went. The store would continue to look like it did in the photo above for 10 more years, until it received its Marketplace remodel in 1994:

     Winn-Dixie spent most of 1994 remodeling this store to its then-modern Marketplace format, a remodel which included a complete reconfiguration of the store's interior, as well as an addition built on the north side of the building (which came at the expense of a few small storefronts located between Winn-Dixie and the plaza's Walgreens junior anchor). The Marketplace remodel concluded in November 1994 with a grand reopening celebration, described in this Lakeland Ledger advertisement (a portion of which I screenshoted above). The Marketplace remodel brought about new larger service departments, a photo lab, a video rental center, and of course, the Marketplace decor we all know and love (pun intended, of course!). While the remodeling of a 1980's Winn-Dixie store to the Marketplace format wasn't anything uncommon, what was about to unravel here at Imperial Christina Plaza roughly 10 years after the initial Marketplace remodel was quite the rarity:

     In February 2003, it was revealed that Winn-Dixie was interested in adding a liquor store to this location. However, in order to add a liquor store to this building, Winn-Dixie would have to wall off a portion of the produce department and do some reconfiguring of the salesfloor. With all the work involved in clearing out the space for the new liquor store, that ended up triggering a remodel for the rest of the building, leading this store to be one of only two Marketplace Winn-Dixies I've ever known about to end up with the company's Purple/Maroon decor of the early 2000's - a nicer version of that decor too. Most of Winn-Dixies stores that remodeled to Purple/Maroon in the early 2000's were typically really old stores that missed getting a Marketplace remodel in the 1990's, with the deluxe variant of that decor reserved for the handful of new stores Winn-Dixie opened in the few years leading up to the chain's bankruptcy in 2005. Winn-Dixie #632 ended up getting a mid-range version of Purple/Maroon that was a cross between the deluxe variant and the common remodel variant, using the common version's signage paired with the deluxe version's wall decorations. The only other Winn-Dixie Marketplace that ever got a similar remodel to what we're about to see here in South Lakeland was the Wauchula Winn-Dixie Marketplace, which was heavily damaged following Hurricane Charley in 2004. Sadly, while I've heard about the Wauchula store's interior from locals, I've never seen a picture of the interior of that store, which closed in 2016 following Winn-Dixie's decision to consolidate into the former Sweetbay building on the other side of town. However, the case of the flip-flopping Winn-Dixies of Wauchula is a much more involved story for another day, so we'll talk more about those stores another time!

     This particular Winn-Dixie had really intrigued me due to its rare interior, and was high on my list of Winn-Dixies to visit for that reason. Thankfully I managed to visit this store back in 2019 while it still had its rare decor in-tact, which it held onto until 2022, when this store (and its sister location up the road at Lakeland Highlands and Edgewood) remodeled to Winn Win. It's quite the shame this store ended up closing only two years after it remodeled, essentially rendering its Winn Win remodel a waste once Aldi came barreling in. Unfortunately, there aren't many photos of this store out there following its Winn Win remodel, but I think most of us can picture what that would look like. Even if post-remodel coverage is scarce, this store still looked quite nice with its prior decor, even though that decor was looking a bit dated by the early 2020's. Anyway, there are plenty of Winn Win stores out there to see, but only 2 stores that ever got "Cheap Deluxe" Purple/Maroon, so I can't complain too much about not revisiting this store in its last few years!

     On the far right side of the Winn-Dixie was its liquor store, the motivating factor for the early 2000's remodel this store received. To the right of the liquor store is an Anytime Fitness, which relocated shortly after my visit in 2019. Following Anytime Fitness's departure, a church moved into that storefront. I'm just mentioning all this now because that church is going to come up again at the end of this post, and knowing where it is will help with what I'm going to describe later.

     Winn-Dixie did a good job in the 1994 remodel of making this store look like a newbuild Marketplace from that era, recreating the typical facade and awning treatments of a store built new at that time. Once we go inside it's a little easier to notice this facade was built on the bones of a 1980's Winn-Dixie, as a 1990's Marketplace stores have a more square-shaped salesfloor, while 1980's Winn-Dixies are wider with a more rectangular salesfloor.

     The exterior signage we see here dates back to the 2003-2004 era remodel, as the original signage that accompanied the buildings of this facade style looked more like this, emphasizing the "Marketplace" format more than the actual name of the store. By the time the early 2000's came along, it was common to see Winn-Dixie swap out the old Marketplace signs like you saw at that link for new ones like this which put "Winn-Dixie" in the prominent spot on the front of the building where "Marketplace" used to be, following the retirement of "Marketplace" as an official store concept.

     Due to this being a converted 1980's store, the entryway was much wider than you'd normally see at a similarly designed newbuild Marketplace Winn-Dixie, with more windows across the front end. Also, at a newbuild, the entrance and exit would typically be lined up with the pointed roof, which acts to designate the entryway. However, the pointed roof is mostly decorative here, as the entrance is actually off to the side under the sign instead.

     Even with those anomalies I mentioned, the entryway still used the typical Marketplace design of having the entrance doors on an angle, with the exit facing straight out from the check lanes. During the early 2000's remodel, the original swinging doors were swapped out for sliding ones, which is the style of doors Winn-Dixie used for their early 2000's newbuilds.

     After entering the store you see a cart corral, and after walking around that you find the seasonal alcove, which is located behind the cart corral. While serving as a dumping ground for Christmas stuff when I visited, this alcove used to be home to either the photo counter or the video rental department previously, both of those being features Winn-Dixie discontinued around the time of the 2005 bankruptcy (if not a bit earlier).

     Here's another look at the seasonal alcove, which doesn't have much going on decor-wise. Being that the decor is what made me drive all the way out here, let's turn toward the produce department to finally get a look at that:

     Produce was located in the front right corner of the building, with the wall straight ahead of us being the one that separates the main salesfloor from the liquor store. Like most Winn-Dixies, a chain link fence barrier actually lets folks from the main store look through the wall into the liquor store (and vice versa), however, Winn-Dixie's liquor store banner managed to cover up the entire chain link barrier, so no peeking at the booze for us!

     Turning our attention to the signage on the front wall, here's our first closeup at this store's unique wall decor. A typical Purple/Maroon remodel would have threw those department signs on the wall and left it at that, however, those stock photos (and as we'll see in a little bit, the faux awnings) were from Deluxe Purple/Maroon - see this photo of a Deluxe Purple/Maroon produce department, where that same photo of the hands holding the tomatoes appears.

     Turning to our left, here's an overview of the right side of the store and the "grand aisle" (which I guess you can call this area, even though the bakery is all in its lonesome on the other side of the store). At the back of the liquor store space, the side wall angles toward the original right side of the building, creating an alcove for the main store's potent potables department. The liquor store takes up most of the space that would have been where produce was originally, with produce shifting over into salesfloor, causing for the consolidation of a few of the grocery aisles.

     I was very intrigued by this tomato display for some reason, probably because it was designed to look like an old roadside fruit stand pull-cart. The big wagon wheels weren't just for show either - those wheels were functional when moving this display around. Following this store's Winn Win remodel, the tomato cart was most likely upgraded to this design.

     Hanging from the ceiling along the liquor store partition was another sign for the produce department, lacking any additional wall embellishments due to the chain link fencing behind it.

     Leaving produce, the partition between the liquor store and the main salesfloor angles outward, creating a home for the main store's beer coolers - just in time for Oktoberfest too, appropriate enough for Die Rindfleischleute!

     The beer and wine department had these hanging signs which matched the wall decor, advertising the various categories of beer and wine sold here. "The Coldest Beer in Town" slogan was common to see on Winn-Dixie's signage from the Purple/Maroon era too. I wonder if anyone ever tried to challenge Winn-Dixie on that claim, for slogan didn't last long!

     Following beer, the displays along the wall transition into wine. Quite a bit of "value" wine on the wall too, which is not a common descriptor I see used in the wine departments at most stores!

     Following beer and wine, we find the deli counter in the back right corner of the store. The deli is still in the same location as it was following the store's 1994 remodel, with the liquor store addition happening far enough toward the front of the store so this department didn't have to move. Along with the deli signage we can see its accompanying stock photos of flowers (which don't really correlate with what the deli sells, but if nothing else, they look nice!) and the faux awnings (which must have been a popular trend in the early 2000's, as Publix's Classy Market 1.0 decor from the same era used fake awnings too).

     Following the deli we find the store's seafood counter, followed by the meat coolers beyond that.

    Before leaving the right side of the store, here's one final look back toward produce, giving us a nice overview of that department as seen from the beer and wine.

     Separating produce from the deli and seafood counters were a few short aisles of greeting cards and party supplies, complete with a matching (and badly faded) hanging sign advertising the Hallmark products in this aisle.

     Leaving the Hallmark aisle, here's another look across the back of the store, with a better view looking toward the meat coolers and the signage along the back wall. With all of the stock photos and awnings between the signs, there's a lot happening on the walls. Do you all find this decor to be too busy, or a nice use of filler to break up the monotony of what would otherwise be blank while walls? I'm leaning toward the former myself, as I think the plain white walls keep all the signage from looking too crowded, which lots of paint color changes would certainly exuberate.

     There's water on the floor in aisle 2! It used to be pretty common for Winn-Dixie to stack the extra cases of water out into the aisle like this, but I haven't seen this happen in a while, so corporate must not have been happy with the stores using the aisles as a dumping ground for excess product.

     Leaving aisle 2, here's a look across the store's (very white) front end. The front end is where the decor in this store really falls flat, as the previous Marketplace decor at least had a little color and embellishment to liven things up.

     As we've seen walking around the store, Winn-Dixie replaced all the floors in the early 2000's remodel. All the funky old Marketplace tile patterns were either ripped out or covered over with new white tiles in the remodel, with the exception of a light blue band that follows the perimeter of the store.

     I really have to compliment whoever this store had working the salesfloor, as the aisles in this place were perfectly faced.

     Returning to the back wall once again, here's a close-up of the Fresh Meats sign, as well as its accompanying stock photos. While the stock photos in the produce department actually correlated with the products sold there (the hands holding the tomatoes, the cornfield), the rest of the stock photos throughout the store take on more of a subtle local flare tone (such as the pictures of swampland and marshes, flowers, birds, etc. depicting the natural scenery around Florida). I guess you could argue that picture of the flock of geese could be considered "Fresh Meat", but I don't think Winn-Dixie sells goose, so I think that's just part of the natural scenery theme!

     Following the "Fresh Meat" coolers, we find the "Frozen Meat" coolers. After frozen meats, dairy begins where the wall juts out a bit, and runs down the remainder of the back wall.

     As we enter frozen foods, like the front end, everything becomes very, very, white, quite the contrast to this! I'm sure Winn-Dixie's thought process here was that by painting everything in the frozen food department white, it would extract the symbolism of snow, which is white, and give the ambiance of being cold, like frozen foods (and was not at all just a product of Winn-Dixie being cheap during the remodel!).

     The Styrofoam coolers on top of the freezers are just compounding the effect of everything else that's white in this aisle!

     At the back wall again, color returns as we near the milk coolers.

     Not only does milk get its own wall sign, it also got a small hanging sign over the aisle too!

     Another reminder that we're shopping in an expanded 1980's Winn-Dixie are those round Kmart-esque air diffusers over the salesfloor. Those air diffusers are as much a classic Winn-Dixie element as they are with old Kmart stores.

     About halfway through the salesfloor, here's another look at the front end as we near the service desk, which we'll take a closer look at later.

     Entering aisle 9, we find pet products.

     After the milk coolers, we find the remainder of the dairy department leading us into the building's back left corner.

     Continuing the "Florida's natural beauty" theme of the photos on the wall, what more appropriate of a scene could there be than a close-up of some oranges growing on a tree? It would have been more appropriate if this photo lined up with the orange juice instead of the yogurt, but it's the local flare thought that counts.

     Considering the theming of the photos around the store are very Floridian, I'd have to imagine Winn-Dixie was aiming to curate the stock photos used with whatever region a store was in. Sadly, the only other state besides Florida where Winn-Dixie opened new stores during the era where Purple/Maroon was in use (2002-2005) were in Alabama and Mississippi, and those stores were either very short lived (the Mississippi ones) or have been remodeled out of the original decor for a long while (the Alabama one). Winn-Dixie seemed to be brewing a lot of new ideas in the early 2000's, but the 2005 bankruptcy squashed most of what Winn-Dixie was looking to try. Following the bankruptcy, we were left a lot of questions about what could have been as the company totally shifted gears and entered the "Getting Better All the Time" era, switching from innovation to cleaning up the mess the bankruptcy left behind.

     Entering aisle 10 we find cleaning products, where the Windex and Tide seen here will soon yield to shelves of Radiance and Tandil.

     Leaving aisle 10 and turning to the right, we see the bakery in the background. To my left we see shelves of soda, but at one time...

     …this space was home to the store's pharmacy counter. The pharmacy at Winn-Dixie #632 was closed during the company's 2016 pharmacy purge, long before the rest of the company's pharmacies closed following the announcement of the Aldi deal. This store did a good job of concealing the pharmacy counter and making its presence seem less obvious, with the flush shelving and repainting of the wall where the pharmacy sign used to be. I've been told ginger ale is a good drink for an upset stomach, so it seems appropriate a large ginger ale display is what replaced the old pharmacy space!

     Across from what used to be the pharmacy, we find the health and beauty aisles, with health and beauty starting here in aisle 12...

     …and continuing into aisle 13.

     The columns we see here in aisle 14 mark the dividing line between the original store and the 1994 addition. Overall, this store didn't increase in size by much following the addition, as the extra space only gave Winn-Dixie enough room for two more grocery aisles and a new bakery.

     From the end of aisle 14, here's a look across the expanse of the original 1984 salesfloor. For a space that was only around 35,000 square feet when originally built, this store felt pretty big. The 1994 addition only got this building closer to 40,000 square feet, which is still pretty small for a Marketplace Winn-Dixie, but this building's width made this store feel larger than it really was.

     The main dairy signage is located in the back left corner of the store, surrounded by more photos of flowers.

     Turning the corner, along the store's left wall we find the lunch meats.

     Following lunch meats, the remainder of the store's last aisle, aisle 16, is home to packaged cheeses (which were segregated from the rest of dairy by the lunch meats), with loaves of bread on the opposite side of the aisle.

     Hmm...that "fresh bread" has quite the papery texture to it! However, unlike some stores, at least the Fresh Bread was still in the general proximity of that sign, just out in the aisle in front of the sign rather than right below it. I'll give you a pass on this one Winn-Dixie!

     Around the corner from the Fresh Bread sign, we find the bakery. The bakery in this store seemed a bit crunched down compared to the set-up in most Marketplace stores, probably due to the limited space the bakery got when it moved to the small addition. Prior to the addition, the deli and bakery would have been located where the pharmacy counter was later installed behind the service desk, with those departments separating and moving to their own areas following the Marketplace remodel. Also, unlike the rest of the flooring (which was replaced in the early 2000's remodel), the old Marketplace tiles still remain here in front of the bakery.

     Stepping back a bit, here's a better overview of the bakery, although not quite as nice as the hawk's eye view our friend in the photo has. The bakery didn't have a lot of space for displays here, having to line all of them up in the actionway and down into aisle 16. I'd have to imagine that when the liquor store was added, most of the bakery's extra salesfloor space was sacrificed to make up for the grocery aisles that were lost, leading to the cramped setup this store had going into the end.

     Leaving the bakery, back to the front end we go to finish out our interior tour of this store.

     The service desk is located around the corner, but had this hanging sign facing the main aisle explaining what services were offered at the counter.

     The decor for the customer service desk is right out of a standard Purple/Maroon remodel, and lacking any of the extra embellishments featured the more deluxe version of this decor.

     Here's one final interior photo, looking across the front end, as we leave and prepare to let Aldi do their thing here...

     Up until this store's pharmacy closed in 2016, there used to be signage to the left of the pointed roof that read "FOOD - PHARMACY", all of which was removed when the pharmacy closed.

     And speaking of pharmacies, to the left of the old Winn-Dixie we find this Dollar Tree, which has taken up shop in the former Walgreens space at Imperial Christina Plaza. Walgreens moved to a freestanding store across the street in the late 1990's, with a Famous Tate appliance store taking over this spot following Walgreens's departure. Famous Tate remained at Imperial Christina until the late 2000's, when Dollar Tree moved in.

     Here's one final look at the pre-Winn Win storefront at the South Lakeland Winn-Dixie. While Polk County's building permit database doesn't have a PDF of Aldi's construction plans to view, someone commented on a Facebook post about this store's closure that Aldi will be taking over the left half of the building, while the church next door to the old liquor store will be taking over the right half of the building to expand their operations from the tiny former Anytime Fitness space they're in right now. That information came from a Facebook comment so I guess we'll have to take that with a grain of salt, although I'm sure before long we'll be seeing the new Aldi appear and exactly how they'll have this building reconfigured.

Photo courtesy of Lakeland Retro

     Before I close out this post, I want to share with everyone a few Winn Win-era photos of this store I found (since I don't have any of my own). We already saw one recent exterior photo of this store at the beginning of the post, but I figured another here at the end wouldn't hurt, showing off the Winn Win-era paint scheme contrasted by the store closing banner to the side.

Photo courtesy of C Daddy on Google

     These last two photos I found came from this store's Google Review page, showcasing this store after it closed as someone came in to pick up fixtures.

Photo courtesy of C Daddy on Google

     This photo, in particular, gives us a glimpse of the interior and its short-lived Winn Win decor, looking over an empty salesfloor. It's pretty sad to see a nicely refreshed store closed so soon after, but from how this Aldi acquisition is seemingly panning out, this deal was a Winn Win for Aldi, but not so much for Winn-Dixie. Winn-Dixie was finally beginning to turn a new leaf just for their new German overlords to squash that progress to pieces. I guess we'll have to see what becomes of Winn-Dixie over the coming months and what Aldi ultimately wants to do with the chain. I know this is probably a ridiculous thought, but I did see a comment elsewhere online theorizing that once Aldi has taken what they want from Winn-Dixie, the Kroger-Albertsons deal will have finally been blocked, and then Aldi can sell what's left of Winn-Dixie to Albertsons as a means to return to Florida. Wouldn't that be ironic? The odds of Albertsons buying the remains of Winn-Dixie are probably as likely as a blizzard in Miami on the 4th of July, but then again, who would have ever guessed Aldi was going to buy Winn-Dixie?

     Anyway, we'll probably be seeing more of these Winn-Dixie conversions on the blog on the coming months, as I have a number of the stores Aldi selected for conversion in my archives. While I think about what Winn-Dixie I want to cover next, I've gone two posts now without showcasing anything Albertsons related, so let's get back to business with our old blue friend next time!

So until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger