Former Albertsons #4306 - Bradenton, FL (Desoto Square)

Albertsons #4306

3620 1st Street West, Bradenton, FL

Today's post is a presentation of Manatee County retail

     While there was a time when you could buy household goods, fishing poles, and even a hibachi grill at Albertsons, those items can still be found in this building, but in a very different way! Our latest Albertsons adventure takes us to Bradenton, to another one of Albertsons' first few locations in Florida. Being such an old store, this was the first of the 3 Albertsons stores that would eventually call Bradenton home (the other two stores being the long-lived #4354 on West Manatee Avenue, and #4407 on West Cortez Road, the town's Jewelbertsons). The original Bradenton Albertsons, #4306, which never made it out of the 20th century as a supermarket, has quite the interesting past though, so let's take a moment to learn a little more about this location:

     Albertsons #4306 (or, as it was called at the time, Skaggs-Albertsons #4306) opened on May 7, 1975, only 7 months after the company made its Floridian debut a little to the north in Clearwater. Upon its opening in 1975, Albertsons was joining a growing number of retailers setting up shop around the perimeter of the new DeSoto Square Mall, which had opened two years prior. The opening of DeSoto Square began to establish this stretch of Tamiami Trail as Bradenton's original big box retail hub, with a number of other shopping centers popping up around the mall at this time too.

I was doing my grocery shopping and totally forgot I had to paint the house too - thankfully Skaggs-Albertsons has me (and my house) covered! Hopefully they have the right tint of avocado green I need!

     While the May 7th opening was more of a "soft opening" from the description provided by the Bradenton Herald in that previous clipping, by the next week, Albertsons was advertising the new store in full force. In this particular grand opening ad, we have the "20 reasons to shop Skaggs-Albertsons in Bradenton", with 19 of those 20 reasons being the assorted grocery and general merchandise departments this superstore offered at the time, as "now you can put food & drugs in one bag!!!" (And paint too, as this ad was really pushing the paint!) The 20th reason to shop the new store was because of the "Man in Gold", a reference to the store director, whose uniform in the 1970's and 1980's was a gold jacket (which was to make it easy to identify the store manager while on duty if you needed help - this was something Albertsons promoted heavily at the time).

Photo courtesy of Otherstream on flickr

     The above photo of #4306 in its early days does a nice job of capturing the design and aesthetic of an early Floridian Skaggs-Albertsons store. Following the breakup of the Skaggs-Albertsons partnership in 1978, all of the building's signage would be changed out to reflect the new sole-branding as "Albertsons", with the updated signage looking like this. It appears this store received one remodel in its lifetime, sometime during in the 1980's.

     Sadly, Albertsons #4306 was one of the Floridian locations that closed outright in the 1990s, with this store officially closing in August 1997 (as mentioned in the article above). While that article was talking about some financial turbulence at Albertsons, I believe this store's closure had more to with store #4407 (which opened in 1992 about 3 miles west of here) stealing a lot of this location's business. The large Jewel-Osco building Albertsons inherited was much nicer and newer than #4306's building, and better positioned to serve the growth in the western part of Bradenton going toward the beaches. My theory is Albertsons decided to go all-in with #4407 and close #4306 instead of remodeling it again in the late 1990's.

    After Albertsons closed store #4306, the parking lot of the building was used to hold auto auctions in the late 1990's, an example of one of the auction ads above. The Albertsons building would continue to sit until 2003, when a new tenant finally decided to give the building a new lease on life:

     In 2003, Shoppers Bazaar (a flea market) was finally able to begin preparations to open a store in the old Albertsons space. Interestingly, the owner of Shoppers Bazaar, entrepreneur Terry Schneider, tried making an offer for the building in 1999 (six months before Albertsons' original lease expired), and then again in 2001, with negotiations with the landlord breaking down the second time due to the presence of asbestos in the building. After the 2001 negotiations began to fall apart, Mr. Schneider turned his attention to a vacant Family Mart/Kash n' Karry building in North Fort Myers (the smaller picture in the above article), where his first Shoppers Bazaar would eventually open. However, Mr. Schneider didn't give up on the vacant Bradenton Albertsons building, continuing to negotiate with the landlord until he eventually reached a deal in 2003 to begin opening what would become the second Shoppers Bazaar location.

     However, I would like everyone to turn their attention to the large picture showcasing the interior of the Bradenton Albertsons included with that article. That photo was a picture of Mr. Schneider and his assistant holding up a diagram of Shoppers Bazaar's new layout, with the old Albertsons interior in the background, clearly showing the remnants of Albertsons 1980's interior on the walls! The article even goes on to describe the scene inside the building as "the skeletal architecture of the 27-year-old building remains in melded tones of yellow, orange, and green." While the article went on to say that Shoppers Bazaar would go on to repaint the building's interior and exterior, it seems like the outlines of the 1980's Albertsons decor remained in this space through Shoppers Bazaar's tenure.

Photo courtesy of a really old real estate listing

     While I couldn't find any other interior photos of Shoppers Bazaar, we do have a few exterior photos lying around of the building. From the outside, we can see Albertsons did close in the original side entrance for an expanded liquor store (probably during the 1980's remodel), with the liquor store's entrance relocating to the front of the building. The rest of the entrances remained in their original locations. Shoppers Bazaar's exterior paint scheme (which was described in the article) can be seen here as well, with a pawn shop occupying the old liquor store too (although I'm not sure if the pawn shop was independent of Shoppers Bazaar or not).

     Shoppers Bazaar remained in business until February 2006, when the Bradenton store (as well as its sister location in North Fort Myers) closed without warning, automatically putting the flea market's 130 vendors out of business as well. Following the closure of both Shoppers Bazaar locations, owner Terry Schneider filed for bankruptcy, and was later convicted in 2007 for failing to pay the state of Florida $145,000 in sales tax (and I believe the investigation into Mr. Schneider's tax scheme is what lead to the closure of the Shoppers Bazaar stores).

     Three years after the closure of Shoppers Bazaar, former Albertsons #4306 would be transformed into what we see today. It was announced in July 2009 that the building would be overhauled and divided into spaces for 4 new tenants, the first of which was Family Dollar, which opened in late 2009.

     The new Family Dollar store would later be joined by West Marine, a hibachi buffet, and a baseball training facility, rounding out the transformation of this former Albertsons space.

Photo courtesy of a really old real estate listing

    Before we return to the present, I did happen to have a photo of this building from after Family Dollar opened, but before the last 3 tenants moved in. In preparation for Family Dollar's opening, the parking lot was repaved and the building was repainted.

     And while the later tenants all rebuilt their spaces to fit their needs, the exterior of the building still retains its original Albertsons architecture from 1975. Even with 4 new tenants, this building doesn't look to bad!

     Family Dollar's store took over the old Albertsons liquor space, as well as some of the surrounding salesfloor area to the right and back of the old liquor store.

    The little jut-out from the corner would have housed the old Skaggs-Albertsons (and later Albertsons) "Food Drug" signs, and in later years, the "Liquor" sign would have been where Family Dollar's sign is now.

     While the exterior of this building is still all Albertsons, the interiors of all 4 new tenants were completely rebuilt. The Family Dollar space is much larger than the original liquor store was, so when that was ripped out, so was everything else around it too.

     However, one leftover from Albertsons I spy is Family Dollar's entryway, which is in the original location and uses the same door configuration Albertsons would have used. All the windows surrounding the doors were carved out by Family Dollar when they moved in.

     The only other Albertsons trait I can find inside this store is the really high ceiling, which is much higher than you'd find in any other Family Dollar. While I'm sure the drop ceiling and lights are all new from when Family Dollar moved in, the height of the ceiling matches the height of the drop ceiling Albertsons would have had. The fluorescent light strips also give off the aesthetic of a 1970's Albertsons building too!

     Since I spent the last few descriptions going on about Albertsons remnants, I might as well mention that throughout those photos, we saw Family Dollar's rather large clothing department, and then slowly worked our way toward the back of the building, which is that wall in front of us. The emergency exit to my left takes you out the side of the building. Considering the large clothing selection, I believe this store skewed toward the larger end for Family Dollar, as their typical locations don't normally have full traditional clothing racks like the ones we saw before!

     The back of the building gives us some oddly placed columns, similar to what we saw recently in Big Lots' conversion of an old Kmart in Orlando.

     Some really tall shelving in this store, but if there's one thing dollar stores like to do is pack as much stuff as they can into a building!

     The right side of the Family Dollar space had some more oddly placed columns following the partition between Family Dollar and West Marine. However, these columns left a little more room to access the items on the shelf, unlike the ones along the back wall.

     That's all there is to see inside Family Dollar, so out we go for a look down the left side of this former Albertsons store.

     Even though a Coca-Cola delivery truck and a minivan were blocking it when I first pulled in, here's a look toward the original liquor store and side entrance from Albertsons. Strangely, the Family Dollar sign on this side of the building was just a printed sign with a light illuminating it from above, while the sign on the front was a traditional backlit one.

     Underneath all of that stucco are the original river rock walls, which were most likely covered over in the 1980's remodel this building received from Albertsons.

     As part of Family Dollar's recent purging of stores, this location was one of the stores chosen to close, closing in late 2021 (which was not long after I visited it, actually). The Family Dollar space sat empty for a few months before auto parts chain 4 Wheel Parts opened a store here in 2022.

Photo courtesy of 4 Wheel Parts

     Pulling a photo from Google, 4 Wheel Parts, like the rest of the tenants, didn't do anything to modify the architecture of the building, but did opt to repaint their slice of this former Albertsons gray. 4 Wheel Parts is a California-based auto parts chain of roughly 40 stores, which has been expanding lately throughout the Sunbelt states. 4 Wheel Parts specializes in selling parts for Jeeps, pickup trucks, and other off-road vehicles, which differentiates them from the big chains this this space like AutoZone and O'Reilly's. 4 Wheel Parts did modify the interior a bit from what we saw inside Family Dollar, installing new lighting, painting the ceiling black, and ripping out the floor tiles.

     Moving along from the old liquor store corner of the building, let's take a look at the rest of the tenants here. West Marine occupies the center portion of this former Albertsons building, occupying the piece where Albertsons' original entryway was located. As we can see, West Marine rebuilt the entryway into a single door in the middle of the jut-out, with new windows surrounding it.

     Albertsons' left side entryway would have been located where Family Dollar's ice cooler is now, with a few windows wrapping around the corner to illuminate Albertsons' front end.

     Here's a look along the front walkway as we near the entrance to West Marine, which is located up ahead by that garbage can.

     I didn't go inside West Marine, as there's absolutely nothing reminiscent of Albertsons in there. The interior was rebuilt to look like West Marine's typical prototype, although if you do want a peek inside, you can see some photos here.

     Supermarket subdivisions are always unpredictable. Sometimes you get examples like the one here, where the exterior was left exactly like the original tenant kept it. Other times the entire facade is rebuilt (like this example - that building used to be identical to this one), but I guess some landlords are bigger spenders than others when it comes to remodels like these.

     An inconveniently placed pole gets in our way as we look back toward West Marine and Family Dollar, before moving onto our final front facing tenant: Hibachi Grill & Supreme Buffet.

     The right side of the former Albertsons building, formerly home to Albertsons' service departments like the deli, bakery, and produce, is now home to the Hibachi Grill restaurant, a pretty typical Asian buffet from the pictures posted online.

     While Hibachi Grill also rebuilt the interior, the exterior hasn't been changed much from Albertsons. Outside of Albertsons' old automatic swinging doors being replaced by a new manual door and the installation of new windows, the placement of all that still matches where Albertsons' right side entryway and windows were located.

     Stepping into the parking lot of the neighboring skating rink, here's a look across the front of this old Albertsons building, giving us a nice overview of the place.

     Also next door to the former Albertsons (and located in front of said skating rink) is an Arby's, and I'd be remiss if I didn't get a picture of Arby's old-school giant hat sign! Even better yet, the car parked to the left of the sign probably dates back to the same era as this sign! Unlike the sign, the Arby's itself has been modernized. This particular hat sign dates back to 1982, with Arby's opened at this location following the closure of the building's previous tenant, Jack in the Box (who pulled out of Florida in 1980). Thanks to hmaxhanson for that tidbit on the history of this Arby's site!

     These days, the old Albertsons building is referred to as "Crossroads Plaza", a name created following this building's subdivision in 2009. While this sign is modern, I believe it may be built off the bones of the original Skaggs-Albertsons era road sign from the 1970's.

     Here's a final look at the front of the building, showing off 3 of the 4 modern day tenants. As for the 4th tenant in this building, that tenant is just a bit more hidden...

     …located in the back of the building next to the old loading docks. The final modern-day tenant in this building is Square Up Baseball & Softball Academy, a youth sports training academy with batting cages and such. Square Up is positioned behind West Marine and the Family Dollar space, with West Marine appearing to have access to the old Albertsons loading dock we also see in this image. Again, nothing from Albertsons inside Square Up's space, although having a tenant in the back like this is rather strange.

     Anyway, now that we've covered all our bases on the ground, we'll head up to the skybox (aka Bing Maps) for some Bird's Eye aerial views of this building:

Front

Right Side

Back

Left Side

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

Former Albertsons #4306 - 2024

Former Albertsons #4306 - 2017 - that building in front of the old Albertsons torn down for the new car wash in the 2024 aerial was an old gas station, which had been empty since the late 2000's.

Former Albertsons #4306 - 2012

Former Albertsons #4306 - 2010 - Family Dollar was the only tenant in the building at this time, their space made pretty obvious with the new white roof.

Former Albertsons #4306 - 2007

Former Albertsons #4306 - 2003

Albertsons #4306 - 1995

Albertsons #4306 - 1984

Future Albertsons #4306 - 1969 - A few existing buildings were removed to make way for the new Albertsons.

     While the DeSoto Square Mall across the street from this former Albertsons closed in 2021 after years of decline (a lot of which is attributed to the Great Recession and the opening of The Mall at University Town Center in 2014), the retail surrounding the mall is surprisingly still healthy. There is talk of redeveloping the mall site into apartments and mixed-use space, which will also boost this area and keep it afloat. So even though Albertsons was an early casualty in this area, the building has been able to survive with some different retail and restaurant tenants.

     I'll end today's post with that, but we'll continue on next time in the Bradenton-area with something not related to Albertsons, so be sure to come back in two weeks for that!

Until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger