Albertsons #4469 / Publix #1339
4950 Belle Terre Parkway, Palm Coast, FL - Belle Terre Crossings
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| Today's post is a presentation of Flagler County retail |
In all the years this blog has been around, we've explored the retail in almost every county along Florida's I-95 corridor except two - Nassau (which is the county north of Jacksonville and rests against Georgia) and Flagler (between St. Augustine and Daytona Beach). While I've passed through Nassau County on I-95 a number of times, I've yet to visit any stores in that county - which leaves us with Flagler County. Typically overlooked by most people in favor of the more famous cities (and tourist destinations) to its north and south, Flagler County is one of the sleepier counties along Florida's Atlantic Coast. Most of Flagler County's population resides in the sprawling city of Palm Coast, a majority residential town with a few pockets of retail spread in-between. Being a newer city, and in turn, a newer population hub, the majority of Flagler County's retail is fairly new too, with much of the older stuff phased out in recent years in favor of modern designs. Anyway, I didn't intend to take so long before posting anything about Flagler County retail, but that's just how it worked out. Even though Flagler County isn't home to an abundance of unique or thought provoking supermarkets considering how new much of the retail in the county is, Palm Coast's former Albertsons is actually one of the more interesting Publixsons examples out there, at least to me (but I'm a sucker for anything with Grocery Palace origins). So let's take today to give Flagler County it's time in the spotlight as we learn a little more about former Albertsons #4469:
As I mentioned, Palm Coast is a newer city compared to many others, officially incorporating on December 31, 1999. While Palm Coast as a corporate entity only came to be in 1999, the development of Palm Coast can trace its origins back to the early 1970's, when ITT Community Development (the later name of famous community developer Levitt & Sons) purchased 42,000 acres of swamp and forest land and began transforming it into the modern Palm Coast. While Palm Coast was able to attract a few retail establishments in its early days near the "heart" of town along Palm Coast Parkway near its I-95 interchange, the city really didn't begin to blossom with retail until after the city's formal incorporation at the dawn of the 21st century.
Following the city's incorporation on December 31, 1999, one of the first matters presented to the new Palm Coast city council was the approval of a new Albertsons store. The Albertsons proposal was brought up at the nascent city's January 22, 2000 council meeting, and amidst the new council's drama over how to present itself toward new development, passed the plans for the new supermarket without much issue, allowing Albertsons to begin construction of its new store shortly after.
Shortly after construction on its new store began in early 2000, locals expressed to council their complaints about how Albertsons removed most of the trees from the parcel prior to construction, a violation of the new city's tree ordinance passed in April 2000. However, council clarified that since the tree ordinance passed after Albertsons' plans were approved, there was nothing they could do, as Albertsons was only obligated to follow the city's development rules in place at the time the project was approved.
While a tree controversy is nothing new when it comes to large development projects in Florida, this one breezed through without much issue, even if a few leaves were ruffled in the process.
Albertsons' Palm Coast store opened in early 2001, following "a brief controversy about its mustard colored exterior" (I guess if the tree issue didn't go anywhere, paint color was the next issue the locals could bring up!). The new Palm Coast Albertsons was a fairly typical 61,000 square foot Grocery Palace build, with a fancier than normal exterior featuring some extra detailing to make the building seem classier.
This Albertsons enjoyed a 7-year run before it was included as part of the 49 stores Publix purchased from Albertsons in 2008. Following Albertsons' closure in September 2008, this store was quickly turned around into a Publix, speedily reopening on October 25, 2008. While I would have loved to see all the obvious Grocery Palace remnants Publix kept after only a month and a half turnaround, we're not at a total loss today, where we will see what this store looked like following its first remodel that happened in the mid-2010's.
The Palm Coast Publixsons was a completely new location for Publix, joining a few other locations Publix had in the works for the Palm Coast area that opened in 2008 and 2009. With Palm Coast growing rapidly in the 2000's, getting an extra store courtesy of Albertsons in the area was a nice bonus, especially a well-positioned, central location like this.
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| What's even crazier is that a week before this incident, a plane crashed through the roof of one of Publix's stores in DeLand, which also brought Publix into the national news spotlight for a wild incident at one of their stores. |
On the afternoon of April 12, 2012, the Palm Coast Publixsons gained national media attention after a 76-year-old woman drove her Toyota Camry into the store, claiming to have mistook the accelerator for the brake as she drove through the store's parking lot. The car careened through the exit doors, obliterated the floral department, and came to a stop at the front of the grocery aisles where an 83-year-old man became pinned under the car. 20 shoppers scrambled to lift the car up to get the pinned man out, with 10 shoppers total injured in the affair (although there were no fatalities or Publix employees injured). There's surveillance video of the incident posted to YouTube - it's pretty wild watching it all unfold.
Flagler Live has a nice write-up about the incident you can read here, with the article I clipped above going over some of the post-crash legal affairs Publix got dragged into. Some of the victims injured in the crash began to consider legal action against Publix for not having protective bollards located at the front of the building, which would have made it more difficult for a vehicle to have plowed into the store like it did in April 2012. While many Publix locations have the bollards, this one did not. However, with this particular store, an interesting legal question came up - since Publix was not the grocer to build this store, was it really Publix's fault for not having that extra line of protection in place to prevent a crash of such nature? A typical lawsuit of this type would usually claim that Publix did not construct the store to a particular expectation of safety, however, it was actually Albertsons who built this store. That said, would it actually be Albertsons' fault the bollards were never installed, not Publix, and should the victims sue Albertsons instead? Being that Palm Coast does not have any ordinances requiring the exterior bollards, all these questions fell into a gray area. However, the legal professionals felt that any litigation against Publix for this incident would be settled outside of court, meaning there would never be a need to get a jury's opinion on these matters. I never found any follow-up to the potential lawsuits either, so if any of the parties did sue, they most likely just took a settlement (as speculated) from Publix.
Following that incident, Publix did install new bollards on their own to prevent another incident like we just discussed from occurring, many of which can be seen in the next photo:
Other than the bollards, this store looks almost exactly like it did in the Albertsons days here on the exterior. It's an extremely nice exterior too - a classy Spanish-style version of the Grocery Palace facade complete with a faux balcony. I think the facade compliments Publix well (even if they didn't think the nearly identical Albertsons #4473 in The Villages met their standards in the end - what a sad story there!)
Stepping onto the front walkway, it doesn't get more Albertsons than this! Barring Publix's usual green recycling bins crashing the photo, as well as the Publix issued "ENTRANCE" decal and the Presto! ATM carved out of the window, the rest of this is all Albertsons. Even the address number above the door is original to Albertsons, as Albertsons always had the tendency to write out the entire road name following the number like that, something I've never seen another grocer do in Florida.
In we go!
While Grocery Palace stores usually had the interior cartwell with an interior set of windows like this, one thing Albertsons didn't have was the inner set of sliding doors. Those doors were added by Publix when this store remodeled to Classy Market 3.0/Sienna in the mid-2010's, and if you watched the video of the 2012 car crash, you saw those inner doors weren't there at the time. Since many other Publixsons stores had the inner set of doors added in later remodels, the extra doors weren't a direct consequence of that event, but I wonder if the second set of doors would have made any difference in slowing that car down if they were in place at the time of the incident?
Stepping inside, the front doors open into the back of the pharmacy island, previously home to Albertsons' customer service desk and the in-store dry-cleaners. With Publix opting to relocate the service desk to the front wall next to the exit doors, the space on the back of the pharmacy island became home to assorted promo displays.
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| The Super Bowl soda art ad is your hint to how long I've been sitting on this photoset for. |
Turning the corner, the pharmacy pick-up window becomes visible on the side of the island facing the deli department. Like most Grocery Palace stores, the pharmacy has this dual-window set-up, with the main pharmacy counter and prescription drop-off area around the corner facing the grocery aisles.
Turning around, here's our first look toward the deli department, located in the front left corner of the building.
Albertsons' prepared foods counter would have been located to my left, in the space Publix blocked off with an extra-wide tea and lemonade cooler.
Even though Publix did have the extra space on the front wall for additional offerings or just to spread things out more, they opted to consolidate all their service deli needs to the left wall, where Albertsons' main deli counter was located. The Pub Subs are located closer to the front corner, with the rest of the cold cuts off to the right.
Even though Publix cleaned and polished this store up in its mid-2010's remodel compared to its original cheap Classy Market 2.0 remodel (which would have yielded results more like this - the stuff in the first part of that post with all the repainted Grocery Palace elements), the bones of a Grocery Palace store look really good with a nice Classy Market 3.0/Sienna remodel.
Publix did remodel this store to Evergreen ca. 2022, and even though Publix didn't do anything dramatic to the building during the most recent remodel, I think that remodel was a downgrade overall (and I'm not saying that just to be critical of the new decor - if you watch that video or scroll through the other photos, the yellow/beige floor tiles really clash with the new gray decor, and the signs don't look so great just placed over the repainted Classy Market 3.0/Sienna backgrounds).
Leaving the deli, produce is the next department to follow as we continue down the left side of the store.
The coolers along the wall and the produce tables are all typical Publix spec, but even with the new fixtures, I can still see this clearly.
Spanning the edge of the produce department between the deli and the bakery is aisle 1, which at the time of my visit, was home to pre-packed dried fruits and the bulk food dispensers. I'd have to imagine the bulk food dispensers have since been removed (especially following the 2022 Evergreen remodel), as I can't even remember the last time I saw the bulk foods dispensers in a Publix store.
Speaking of things you won't find in a Publix anymore, here's a little blast from the past at the front end of aisle 1 - the Aprons Simple Meals counter. A casualty of COVID, Publix closed and removed all the remaining Aprons Simple Meals counters in 2020. These counters would have an employee who cooked a feature recipe (which changed every few days) to sample out, and there used to be some interesting offerings at these counters. When I was visiting 6 Publix stores a day on retail road trips way back when, it was a nice snack break when I saw one of these with samples out! (Like was the case here - the cook just happened to be perfectly blocked out by that advertisement tower!). Publix used COVID as their excuse to finally get rid of this feature, with the complimentary (although much rarer) Aprons Cooking Schools succumbing a few years later.
After eating my Aprons sample, back we go down aisle 1 for a preview of our next destination - the bakery.
The bakery was the one department in this store Publix reconfigured the most during the mid-2010's remodel, installing their typical 2010's bakery design into a space that once looked like this.
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| Publix's French bread is good, but still doesn't compare to this. |
Other than the redesign, the bakery never changed locations - it only gained a more rounded appearance and Publix's typical fixtures.
Leaving the bakery, it's time we begin our zig-zag through the grocery aisles as we continue to explore the remainder of the store.
At the front of the first few grocery aisles, we find the remainder of the pharmacy counter. The prescription drop-off counter is at the opposite end from where I was standing (closer to floral), with a small selection of pharmaceuticals on the shelf in front of the counter.
Publix has a tendency to rebuild or significantly alter the pharmacy counters in these old Albertsons stores in subsequent remodels, bringing them more in-line with the Publix spec. However, probably because of its unusual island location, this store's pharmacy was hardly touched during the mid-2010's remodel, only receiving new decor while keeping most other layout elements inherited from Albertsons. The Evergreen remodel didn't change the pharmacy much either outside of the decor as well.
Turning into aisle 4, we find international foods and candy.
Speaking of international foods, stepping out of aisle 4, between the bakery and meat counters we find the alcove that once housed Albertsons' "International Deli". Outside of removing that branding and repainting everything, Publix still uses this alcove for the pre-packaged deli items, just minus that international flare.
After the first 4 grocery aisles, the salesfloor takes a brief switch to non-foods and health and beauty products. These next 4 aisles, numbers 5 through 8, house baby supplies, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and such, located here due to its proximity to the pharmacy counter.
Albertsons' health and beauty department in these Grocery Palace stores usually involved some aisles that ran parallel to the pharmacy counter. Other than straightening those aisles out to a more traditional perpendicular flow, the placement of all these products hasn't changed much since the Albertsons days.
The health and beauty aisles are shorter than the traditional grocery aisles, and help spread all of this merchandise out better across the larger than normal space Publix has to house all this product.
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| That '8' is upside down and it bothers me more than it should! |
These oval-shaped category markers were exclusive to the health and beauty aisles, with the other parts of the store featuring category markers using the traditional Classy Market 3.0/Sienna green rectangles.
At the end of the pharmacy island, closest to the check lanes, we find the floral department. The floral counter was located within the island itself, with additional displays of flowers spilling out into the main aisles surrounding it.
The grocery aisles return to full height for the cosmetic products here in aisle 8, wrapping up the health and beauty aisles.
Returning to the back wall, we find the meat and seafood service counter located between the not-quite-so-international anymore deli and the pre-packaged meat alcove.
Publix replaced the meat and seafood service counter fixtures with their own, but otherwise left the design of the counter the same as it was when Albertsons was here.
Aisle 9 is the last non-foods aisle before we return to more groceries. Here in aisle 9, we find greeting cards, magazines, books, and party supplies.
In aisle 10, we find more groceries. Back in the Albertsons days, this area would have been home to the walk in beer coolers and the wine cellar. One of the largest modifications Publix made to this store's layout since taking over the building was removing all the old beer coolers from this location in the center of the store and moving the alcohol elsewhere in the building.
You can start your day right with the items for sale in aisle 12.
Following the check lanes, we see the wine and frozen foods departments on the right side of the store, departments we'll see more of in a little bit.
Pet supplies are located in aisle 13, relocating here from the front right corner (where the wine department is now) following Publix's modifications.
Packaged meats are located in the second alcove pictured here along the back wall, squeezed between the meat and seafood service counter and the dairy department.
Back to the grocery aisles, it's time for paper products in aisle 15.
Skipping over a few more aisles of cleaning supplies and other non-foods et cetera, we end up in aisle 18, home to both chilled and not-chilled beer.
Even though Publix ripped out the curvy transition ceiling, frozen foods are still located in this store's last two aisles - numbers 19 and 20.
Aisle 20 contains the remainder of frozen foods, but frozen foods also share that aisle with dairy, which runs along the wall. While most of dairy is located in aisle 20, the milk coolers are located on the back wall. Even though it's nothing more than a brown box now, Publix actually preserved the old coolers from Albertsons' original dairy barn - an interesting little remnant, but probably only one a really sharp-eyed Albertsons fan would even pick up on!
Turning the corner, here's a look down the store's last aisle, aisle 20, with the dairy coolers to my left.
The coolers with the doors represent the remainder of frozen foods in aisle 20.
While it comes close, this store is one aisle short from tying the record for the highest aisle count in a modern Publix store. The Blue and Green Awnings revival stores Albertsons built in the 2002-2003 era were slightly larger than these Grocery Palace builds, and Publix managed to squeeze 21 aisles out of some of those stores Albertsons built near the very end of their Floridian store-building tenure.
Leaving the grocery aisles, here's a nice overview of the Wine department, located in the front right corner of the store in Albertsons' original pet department.
Along the front wall, Albertsons' photo counter would have been located just beyond what's now the end of this wine aisle, followed by the video rental alcove and a space reserved for a bank. Publix opted to close in most of the front-end service space for their own offices and converted what was the bank space into the modern service desk.
Even though this is a nearly 60,000 square foot store, there really isn't a lot of excess space Publix struggled to fill in here. This area in front of the wine department was one of the largest voids I saw, and it really wasn't that bad - a bit spacious, but nothing a large display of Pringles couldn't fix!
And not only was there a large display of Pringles over here, but there was also a person in-store giving out samples of Pringles at that table too! Looks like in addition to the chip samples themselves, they were also giving away free Pringles can holders (which probably come in handy during the BOGO sales). While those may have been convenient for people stocking up on Pringles, nothing was more fun than carrying around a more snackable size serving of Pringles in one of these!
Tangents about artificial potato chips aside, we've now entered the store's front end. At the time of my visit, this store had 11 full-service check lanes, on the higher side for a Publix. Following the Evergreen remodel that number probably went down with the installation of the self-checkout lanes, but knowing Publix, there are probably still 7-8 staffed lanes in place following that change.
The modern service desk is located in the space Albertsons would have reserved for a bank. While some Grocery Palace stores did have a bank for a short period in the early 2000's, many stores just kept this area as a built-out (but never used) space.
Heading toward the exit, here's a less-obstructed look toward the service desk. The service desk is a pretty typical Publix design, and it seems like Publix usually leaves the service desk along the front wall in these old Grocery Palace stores instead of moving the desk to an island like they would do in many stores during mid-2010's remodels.
Back outside, off to the right side of the building is the liquor store, featuring architecture that matches the main store's facade.
Publix kept Albertsons' original swinging doors in place over here. Publix is hit or miss when it comes to replacing the doors on the old liquor stores, but it's always nice to see the original ones sticking around.
Now that we've covered the main store, let's take a moment to check out the former Albertsons Express, located next to the liquor store facing Belle Terre Parkway:
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| Photo courtesy of Google Street View |
After closing in 2008 with the other Albertsons Express stations, this station went through a few unsuccessful stints under independent ownership, operating a few different times in the late 2000's and early 2010's as a Citgo before pivoting to off-brands in the late 2010's and early 2020's. Nothing ever lasted long here after Albertsons Express, and as of early 2025, the station is still sitting empty, the most recent capture from Google Streetview featured above.
Other than an unsuccessful rebrand of the convenience store to "SQRL" ca. 2023, the station was just as empty and abandoned in that GSV image as it was when I came through here in 2019. Being located adjacent to a busy Publix at the equally as busy intersection of Belle Terre Parkway and Palm Coast Parkway Eastbound, I don't know why nothing has ever lasted long here since 2008.
For whatever reason, I only took these two photos from the car when I was here. I should have walked up to the windows to see if any Albertsons Express remnants remained inside the convenience store, but I didn't think to do so at the time. Even if I can't speak for the Albertsons remnants, it does look like one of the previous tenants left a lot of stuff in there!
Now that we've seen the old gas station, let's finish up this post with some aerial images, starting with some Bird's Eye imagery courtesy of Bing Maps:
Front - The main store depicted with the old Albertsons Express off to the side
Right Side
Back
Left Side
And now for some historic aerial images, courtesy of Google Earth:
Former Albertsons #4469 - 2023
Albertsons #4469 - 2008
Albertsons #4469 - 2005
Future Albertsons #4469 - 1999
Overall, I'd have to say this was a really nice Publixsons - at least, until it remodeled to Evergreen. I haven't been to this store since the Evergreen remodel so I can't fully judge the new feel of this place, but the few pictures I linked to earlier didn't look very promising. Even if there is some clash between the Evergreen decor and the Classy Market 3.0/Sienna remnants these days, at least the building still looks and feels much like a Grocery Palace Albertsons in many ways, and I'll take a half-hearted Evergreen remodel to one of these buildings over Publix's alternative to that any day!
Anyway, I believe there's an old saying that goes "March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb". I personally think March goes out like a lion, but that's all I'm going to say in reference to our next destination on the blog - come back in two weeks for more about that!
So until the next post,
The Albertsons Florida Blogger
