Planned Albertsons #44XX - Rockledge, FL

 

Winn-Dixie #2315 / Planned Albertsons #44XX

1620 South Fiske Boulevard, Rockledge, FL - Village Green Shopping Center

     Many years ago when I was first compiling my Albertsons Florida store list, I started finding record of some Albertsons stores that never made it off paper. I have a number of those planned locations recorded underneath my main Albertsons Florida store list, and always figured more planned stores would be unearthed over time. Finding record of stores that never made it past the planning process can be a bit difficult at times if public records are hard to access, or the plans never made it past the local "talk and gossip" phase. While I'm pretty sure I have record of every Albertsons store to have actually operated in Florida through the years, I felt the possibility of finding more never-built stores was still decent, considering the difficulties I just explained. However, what I wasn't expecting was finding a planned Albertsons store so close to home for me (which came really close to breaking ground, too), this long into my project of documenting the former Albertsons stores in Florida! Yes, I only discovered the story of the planned Rockledge Albertsons earlier this year, but I guess it's better late than never. I have a short post on AFB today explaining the situation around the plans and cancelation of the Rockledge Albertsons, with a sister post over on MFR that ties in with the history of this building as well. That backstory aside, let's talk more about the subject at hand:

     Located at the intersection of Fiske and Barton Boulevards, the Village Green Shopping Center was prominently placed in the heart of Rockledge upon its opening in 1968. A small community shopping center, the plaza contained anchor stores Winn-Dixie and Liggett Drugs, in addition to a strip of small store fronts for additional tenants. Village Green Shopping Center did well for many years, until it was announced in 1995 that Winn-Dixie would leave Village Green in favor of a new Marketplace built a few miles south of here at the intersection of Barnes Boulevard and Murrell Road (the subject of today's companion post on MFR). Following Winn-Dixie's departure, Village Green saw a sharp decrease in traffic, the former Winn-Dixie space sitting empty for a few years as a new anchor tenant was sought out.

Thanks Sing Oil Blogger for clipping these articles for me!

     Come 1998, a bit of hope was glimmering for the future of Village Green Shopping Center. Coming off the heels of the closure of Albertsons #4368 in Indian Harbour Beach (about 20 miles south of here), the announcement was made that Albertsons was signing on as the new grocery anchor to Village Green in Rockledge. Albertsons would have reconfigured the arrangement of the shopping center with their new store (as the new Albertsons would have been much larger than the old Winn-Dixie - around 50,000 square feet compared to the approx. 30,000 square feet the old Winn-Dixie occupied). I imagine the new Albertsons would have been built roughly in the area of the old Winn-Dixie though (maybe expanded a bit to one or both sides) to minimize impact to the other tenants who remained in the plaza. Interestingly, as Albertsons was preparing to take over the site of a former Winn-Dixie in Rockledge, Winn-Dixie had agreed to take over the building Albertsons was vacating in Indian Harbour Beach. These events were coincidental, although the headline in the article above makes the flip-flop seem more intentional than it really was.

     The new Rockledge Albertsons made it through the planning process and the plans were approved by the city of Rockledge. Everything was good to go, until a snag was uncovered in July 1999. As the sale of the property was about to be finalized to the developer who was going to bring Albertsons to the site, a pre-sale inspection of the shopping center uncovered contaminated soil on the property. The soil contamination had been from chemicals leeched out by a dry cleaner that once operated in the plaza. While the dry cleaner had closed 15 years prior, the chemicals from the business were still present in the soil samples. As mentioned in the article above, the cost for clearing all traces of the chemicals from the Village Green site would have ranged from $500,000 to $700,000, and the process would have stalled any construction for up to four more years. That discovery announced, the construction plans and any hope of bringing Albertsons to the Village Green site were dead.

     It's quite sad the plans for the Rockledge Albertsons were dashed this way. Most of the canceled Albertsons stores I've located had their plans squabbled due to community opposition for one reason or another, but here in Rockledge, the locals really wanted this new store. Prior to the environmental snag, Rockledge residents actually passed around a petition in support of the Albertsons project at Village Green, which was presented to the city zoning board as stronger evidence to get the project approved!

     After the fallout about the environmental contaminants, the Village Green Shopping Center fell into a more rapid decline. Since the property couldn't be redeveloped as it was (as demolition and construction activity would disturb the chemicals in the soil, but leaving the property as it was wouldn't), the buildings just sat. The photo above was taken in 1999 following the collapse of Albertsons' plans to bring a store to Village Green, showing the abandoned Winn-Dixie in its original state. As the years went on the shopping center was remodeled with a new facade, and Winn-Dixie's old vestibule (pictured above) was ripped out, but otherwise the grocery anchor has sat empty since 1995. Village Green Shopping Center steadily declined with tenants following the prolonged abandonment of its anchor space too, making this a very sad shopping center in the present (as its only remaining tenants are a Chinese restaurant and a small thrift store, from what I can tell).

     Here's what the old Winn-Dixie looks like today. It's not too recognizable as a former Winn-Dixie anymore, although when we peek inside, we do find a few small relics of the building's supermarket past:

     Peeking through the window, the building has been mostly gutted. However, some of the old rooms in the back of the store were exposed, keeping a small trace of the old supermarket space alive.

     The Village Green Shopping Center has had a lot of bad luck hanging over it. Not only was the Albertsons redevelopment killed off, but in 2013, plans were announced to bring a Walmart Neighborhood Market to the site too. Much like Albertsons' plans, the Walmart plans didn't get much of anywhere either, although I don't know if the contamination that killed of Albertsons' dreams also spoiled Walmart's. Walmart would have surely demolished the building and put something new here, which would have disturbed the contaminants. Unfortunately, I was never able to find a reason for Walmart pulling out of Village Green, but that project was ultimately scrapped too. However, 26 years after Winn-Dixie closed, it was announced in 2021 that Village Green may have its third try at getting a grocery store back in this building once again, when Thrifty Specialty Produce announced it would take over the former Winn-Dixie building. Thrifty Specialty Produce is a chain of small Hispanic-geared markets primarily located in Brevard County, which sell mostly produce (as the name implies) and meat, with a very small grocery section and lunch counter in addition. We toured a Thrifty store in this post from a long time ago, as Thrifty took over a small portion of former Albertsons #4429 in Melbourne. It's been a few months since I've last driven by this shopping center, but I had yet to see any work starting for the conversion to Thrifty. Hopefully Thrifty's plans won't be joining the likes of Albertsons' and Walmart's, as I'd like to see the expression "third time's the charm" follow through here, as a new grocery tenant has been a long time in the making here at Village Green in Rockledge!

     While Albertsons' plans were ultimately thwarted here in Rockledge, it certainly would have been interesting seeing a (presumably) Grocery Palace Albertsons plopped in the middle of this shopping center. Had Albertsons opened here, it would have been Brevard County's newest Albertsons store, and only Grocery Palace store. I was never able to track down a store number for this planned location, but it would have been somewhere in the 4450s or 4460s based on the timeframe in which this location was planned. Who knows how long Albertsons would have lasted here too, or what kind of funky conversion I'd have brought to the blog today from this site! In the end, a handful of photos of a long-abandoned, heavily modified former Winn-Dixie is what we got, with an interesting story of what could have been on the side too!

     That's all I have to share from here at the Village Green site. If anyone knows any more about Albertsons' plans for this location or has any updates about Thrifty Produce moving in, be sure to let us know in the comments below! For more, since this post was rather short, be sure to check out my companion post on the former Winn-Dixie Marketplace down the road for the complete story on Winn-Dixie's time in Rockledge.

So until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger

New Stores and a New Image...Now That's a Winn Win!

Kash n' Karry #1908 / Earth Fare #583 / Winn-Dixie #2557

5410 Murrell Road, Rockledge (Viera), FL - Viera East Market Center

     Well over a year into it now, and Winn-Dixie's new lease on life isn't showing any signs of waning. Store remodels are happening at a rapid pace, sales are up (a factor Winn-Dixie is crediting to the increased remodels, as mentioned here, in addition to COVID-era sales jumps), and Winn-Dixie is on track to have opened four new stores (as of now) in 2021 (Viera, Melrose, St. Augustine Shores, and Westlake), with the first two new stores of 2022 recently announced as well (St. Johns and Apopka). Winn-Dixie has also commented that more new stores are in the works to be announced for 2022, the company embarking on its first new expansions in nearly 15 years. I'm still impressed a company as battered and beaten as Winn-Dixie has gotten to this point, as many had written off Winn-Dixie as the walking dead years ago. Winn-Dixie still has a lot of ground to make up before they can give Publix a serious run for their money again, but there's a chance they could pull something off. Closing so many stores throughout Florida as Publix drops down new ones seemingly everywhere hasn't helped Winn-Dixie's case, which is why its so nice to see Winn-Dixie growing instead of shrinking again, even if it is just some small steps right now. Of Winn-Dixie's four new stores for 2021 announced so far, today's post will focus on the year's first new store, which opened on May 5, 2021 in Viera, FL, a newer development located in central Brevard County. The photo above shows a trailer parked at the edge of the store's parking lot, announcing Winn-Dixie's pending arrival, and later, grand opening. Speaking of the grand opening, we'll start off with a few photos of this store from its grand opening weekend:

     While there was an official grand opening ceremony held on the morning of May 5, 2021, I wasn't able to attend that since I had the early shift at work that morning. Fortunately, Winn-Dixie had a secondary grand opening event the weekend after the 5th, which I did attend, a few photos of which will start off today's post. The Viera Winn-Dixie was the last of the 8 Lucky's Market and Earth Fare stores Winn-Dixie acquired at bankruptcy auction in early 2020 to open. While the other 7 acquired stores were able to open by the end of 2020, Winn-Dixie was given an opportunity to expand this store into an empty neighboring space. Winn-Dixie wasn't expecting to have that opportunity, so the plans for this store had to be redrawn to account for the new expansion, causing the delay in opening. Even with the expansion, the layout inside is still fairly identical to how the building's previous tenant, Earth Fare, was laid out. For a look at what Earth Fare was like during their tenure here, I have coverage of that which you can see here. If you want to go back even further, I have pictures of this building from before Earth Fare moved in, back when the exterior of this building was still mostly original to its Kash n' Karry origins.

     As you can tell by the previous image, Winn-Dixie's grand opening weekend brought out a crowd, a huge crowd actually. Above you can see the crowd stretching out into the parking lot too. I think this event broke some kind of world record for the number of people showing up to a Winn-Dixie in a single day. It used to be that I'd count more tumbleweeds than shoppers at Winn-Dixie - now we get mobs!

     While I'm sure there were a lot of people who came out this day just to see the new store, most of the people you saw in that mob had come here to listen to the results of a raffle, a raffle in which the golf cart above was the grand prize. As part of Winn-Dixie's new community flare initiative, Winn-Dixie wanted to offer a very Vieran raffle prize for this store's grand opening, in addition to the usual gift card drawings they do. The people of Viera love to drive around town on their golf carts, so Winn-Dixie purchased a golf cart to give away to celebrate the new store's opening. What was really neat about this golf cart was Winn-Dixie had it customized to feature the new Winn Win decor graphics and color scheme around the sides, which you can see in more detail if you zoom in on the above photo. I don't live in Viera or play golf, but I decided to enter the raffle anyway just because I thought the graphics were neat. As you can probably guess, AFB did not become the proud owner of a Winn-Dixie themed golf cart - this lady did instead. Oh well, I got a Winn-Dixie emblemed reusable mug as my grand opening giveaway prize instead, which was a little easier to transport home!

     Here's one last photo of the grand opening event, showing the golf cart/gift card raffle as it was happening. The lady on the ladder was the one calling out names, as some other corporate people stood around her. As you've seen, if you ever want to get the attention of the people of Viera, just tell them there's a free golf cart involved and they'll come out in swarms!

     As you'd imagine after seeing a mob like that, the inside of the store was packed. Considering that, I did a quick walk around the store out of curiosity, but decided to come back a few days later when things calmed down for photos.

     With the golf cart gone, we can shop and take some pictures in peace again! Even with the festivities of that prior weekend over, this store was still drawing a crowd, but a much more manageable one though. Even a few months in, this store is still quite busy, which is nice to see. Viera is a rapidly growing part of Brevard County, and one of the higher-income parts of the county as well, so it's pretty easy to see why Winn-Dixie wanted this store.

     Now that we've spent a good amount of time outside, let's begin to head inside to see what changes have happened in here. Stepping through the first set of doors, we see Earth Fare's old cart storage area. Since this area was a bit small, Winn-Dixie opted to keep their carts outside on the sidewalk, using this area for charging the electric carts instead. However, the usual cart corral wall graphics were installed here anyway, as well as Winn-Dixie's new welcome graphics - Let's shop 'n' roll Viera!

     Stepping into the main store, we turn right and enter the produce department. What we see here is the space Winn-Dixie expanded into, however, I don't have any good comparison photos to show the effects of the expansion on the salesfloor space. Compared to the new Mandarin Winn-Dixie we toured earlier this year (which opened in an identical former Earth Fare space), the Viera Winn-Dixie is only bigger by two grocery aisles, and has a bigger produce and wine department. The majority of the new space Winn-Dixie captured ended up going to the new liquor store, which resides behind that wall in front of us. Even though that doesn't sound like much, that little bit of extra space makes the store feel less crammed-in than what we saw previously in Mandarin.

     Winn-Dixie's floral department resides along the front wall near produce, next to the main entrance. I don't recall seeing a floral section in the Mandarin store, so the addition of floral here also appears to be a product of the expansion. When Earth Fare was here, their original partition wall would have begun right about where the transition between floral and that produce cooler is.

     Even though Winn-Dixie ripped out an entire wall to expand the salesfloor out to the right, I didn't notice any scars on the floor or any other noticeable marks from that happening. It's a very clean transition, and you'd be pretty convinced Earth Fare remodeled the building this way from the start. Seen here is the new right side wall, looking from produce toward the back of the store. The produce coolers extended a little ways down the first aisle, a product of this store's size and Winn-Dixie trying to make everything work.

     The first aisle eventually transitions from produce into the wine and beer section, the start of which we can see here. Also, on the wall above, we can see some of the new local flare graphics that are a key feature in the new Winn Win decor, including the Hello (city name) text and the Made in Florida emblem. Since the debut of the Winn Win decor last fall in the first handful of Lucky's and Earth Fare conversions, Winn Win has now officially become Winn-Dixie's new decor package, bringing an end to Down Down's 4 year run. I think this new decor is an improvement over Down Down, as there's a bit more color and flare to Winn Win compared to how plain Down Down was (although later Down Down remodels did begin to add more color and texture compared to earlier ones).

     Spinning around 180 degrees from the previous photo, here's a peek into the remainder of the beer and wine department. In the beer and wine department, aisle 1 expands into a double aisle following the back wall of the liquor store next door.

     In the back right corner we find the meat and seafood counter. Had it not been for the expansion, the seafood counter would have been on an angle in the corner, like this. With the old seafood counter ripped out to expand the store, the new counter was relocated to be flush against the back wall like this.

     Here's the meat and seafood counter as seen from the opposite angle, looking into the back corner.

     Turning our attention away from the meat and seafood counter, here's a look across the back of the entire store. Comparing the photo above to this view from the Mandarin store, taken from the same spot, should hopefully give everyone a decent idea of how much this building was expanded. The addition of two aisles really made a big difference visually.

     Let's depart the back of the store for a moment, and cut down the soda aisle to return to the front...

     Although its buried behind a bunch of new lights and vents, looking across the front end, we catch our first major glimpse at the store's clerestory windows. Those windows are the only major artifact left in this building from its Kash n' Karry days, this building being one of a handful of round prototype Kash n' Karry stores built at the turn of the 21st century. Kash n' Karry's front end and produce department followed that curve line, making for one funky supermarket design, and giving the place its unique rounded layout. While most of these round prototype buildings still exist in some form, most have been converted into other uses following Kash n' Karry's (and later Sweetbay's) financial woes. Due to that, only one round prototype still survives with its original layout, and it's also a Winn-Dixie today. Thankfully, it's a bit difficult to remove the building's clerestory without having to redo the roof's entire structural system, so we get a nice relic of the past in this new Winn-Dixie store (and some nice sunshine as well!).

     A little less clerestory in this shot, but a better view looking toward the store's front end.

     From the front end, back into the grocery aisles we go as we continue through the store...

     About halfway through the sales floor, here's a look back toward the meat and seafood counter.

     Continuing into the left side of the store, we find the dairy department following the meat coolers. Since there isn't a lot of space for all the dairy products on the back wall, the rest of the dairy department runs along the inner part of aisle 12, in a row of coolers across from the service departments.

     Originally, Earth Fare had only a single aisle of coolers for frozen foods. Winn-Dixie added this extra half-aisle of coolers to the mix, creating an aisle and a half for their frozen food department. Considering the store's odd size and layout, that extra row of coolers ended up being opposite the paper products, making for a rather strange combination of items in this aisle.

     Jumping over to the next aisle, home to the remainder of the frozen foods, we get another nice look at the clerestory windows above.

     Health and beauty products occupy the next aisle over from frozen foods, with the next aisle being home to additional non-food items (and another nice photo of the clerestory windows - I think you can tell by now those windows are my favorite part of this entire store!):

     Cheeses find a home in the store's back left corner, right where Earth Fare kept their cheese. However, Winn-Dixie removed Earth Fare's full service cheese counter in favor of plain self-service coolers.

     The store's last aisle is home to the "grand aisle", and all of the major service departments in the place. Coming up the grand aisle from the back left corner, the first department you encounter is the bakery, followed by the deli (seen here), and lastly, the kitchen.

     While the deli takes up the foreground of the above image, my only photo of the bakery sign and counter can be seen in the background.

     Since this is the "grand aisle", it's also a double wide aisle, with various coolers and displays for the bakery and deli departments taking up residence in the middle of the aisle.

     The very last department for us to visit in the grand aisle (and the closest to the front of the store) is The Kitchen, home to the prepared foods. Like most of Winn-Dixie's modernized stores, The Kitchen offers a sub station, Winn-Dixie's famous wing bar, a sushi bar, and a self-serve hot foods bar.

     Here's one last look down the grand aisle, this time looking from The Kitchen toward the back of the store.

     In the other three Earth Fare to Winn-Dixie conversions, this space in the building's front right corner is home to the beer and wine department. Since beer and wine found its home in the expansion space here, this corner became home to greeting cards and some random displays of promotional merchandise.

     Now that we've finished our loop around the new Viera Winn-Dixie, we'll take one last look at the front end before heading back outside...

     Winn-Dixie did a nice job converting this store, and it seems like Winn-Dixie has won over Viera. The store draws a decent crowd, and there are a good number of Google Reviews from locals who love this place, like this one: "[I] enjoy shopping at the Winn-Dixie near the corner of Murrell Road and Viera Boulevard. By far better than any of the surrounding Publix's." It's not often you hear Floridians utter words like that!

      Although the palm tree is blocking its sign, off to the right side of the Winn-Dixie is the new liquor store.

     Interestingly, the attached liquor store opened a full three months prior to the main store next door, opening in February 2021. Apparently this was the first time Winn-Dixie has ever done such a thing, as the liquor stores usually open at the same time or a few months after the main store.

     Walking back to the car, here we have yet another nod from Winn-Dixie to the local community - six special golf cart parking spaces. While there weren't any golf carts parked here on this visit, trust me, these spaces do get used often. The Vierans love zipping around on their golf carts, and one of these days, maybe I'll see that special Winn-Dixie themed cart parked here too - wouldn't that be neat?

     Anyway, that's all I have for today's post. I'm happy to see Winn-Dixie on the rebound, and it will be interesting to see where the company goes from here. Hopefully more new stores will come out of this, and the company can clean itself up enough to enjoy a spot in the Floridian supermarket scene for years to come, because with new stores and a new image...now that's a Winn Win!

So that's all for now. Until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger

A Tale of Two Krogers - Part 2

     Finally, the continuation you may or may not have been waiting for. Today AFB presents Part 2 (the final part) of our Tale of Two Krogers series. A Tale of Two Krogers - Part 1, featuring the former SupeRx Food and Drug and Florida Choice stores in Titusville, was featured on the blog back in January. Today we travel further south in Brevard County to the city of Rockledge for Part 2, which will feature the former SupeRx and Florida Choice stores there. As was the case with Titusville, Rockledge's former Kroger owned stores are still relatively well preserved after cycling through a few different uses since both of these stores closed in the late 80's. Since I covered the general background info on Kroger Florida in the Part 1 post, I won't go into much detail about it here. If you would like to know more about the history of Kroger in Florida, or if you would like a refresh, be sure to take a quick look at the Part 1 post.

     So let's get right into this and start from the beginning with Rockledge's former SupeRx Food and Drug store:

SupeRx Food and Drug #506

201 Bougainvillea Drive, Rockledge, FL

     This was one of the earlier SupeRx stores, having first opened in 1982. This store was supposed to be replaced by a new Florida Choice store two miles to the south of here in the later part of 1988, however due to Kroger announcing their departure of the Florida market in July 1988, those plans were never fully completed (more on that in the second half of this post). This was one of 6 Kroger owned stores that Gooding's purchased as a part of Kroger's departure from Florida. That deal also included an additional two Florida Choice stores that were under construction but nearly complete at the time of the sale, including the nearly complete replacement for this store two miles to the south. After the deal was finalized, Gooding's opted to open their Rockledge location in the nearly complete (and much larger and nicer) Florida Choice building, closing this one when the new store was ready to open. This building sat empty until 1991 when it found a new life as a 32 lane bowling alley called Space Bowl, a popular hangout in Rockledge during the 90's. Space Bowl eventually fell on hard times by the mid-2000's, and they ended up closing around that same time. Most recently, this building was home to a business file storage facility called Business Archives of Rockledge, which eventually moved out in the later part of 2015. According to some planning documents from the city of Rockledge, the federal government has recently shown interest in purchasing this building. What they plan to do with this place I don't know, but at least I got my pictures before Federal Agents could have a chance to chase me away!

     As we go through these pictures of the SupeRx, you'll notice they were taken at two different times. Some of these were taken in September 2015 when the Business Archive place was still open (like the one above), and some were taken in January 2016 after they moved out. I just wanted to point that out before you begin to wonder why the brown SUV parked in front of the building appears and disappears throughout these pictures.

     Of all of the former SupeRx Food and Drug stores I've found, this one is probably the most well preserved example left in the entire state, exterior-wise anyway. I don't know if the windows and doors are original to the building, but what you see here is (what I'm pretty sure is) the original design of the building at least.

     The liquor store is the building attached to the right side of the main store. We'll take a closer look at that shortly.

     During my September 2015 visit here, the old Space Bowl labelscar was still completely visible after a good 10 years or so of going out of business. By January 2016, the labelscar had been painted over.

     I'm not completely sure about this, but I believe that door was a side entrance that led into SupeRx's pharmacy department.

     So when nobody was around my second time here, and when the front walkway wasn't being used as an extension of the parking lot, I decided to get a closer look at this place. This is what it looks like under the front walkway.

     Like I said before, it's the exterior that makes this place the most well preserved former SupeRx in the state that I know of. Looking though the front door, it's easy to see this place was completely gutted out. I'm sure the bowling alley stripped out most traces of SupeRx, and in turn the archival place stripped out all the traces of the blowing alley.

     Another look down the front walkway, taken closer to the liquor store.

     Now for a quick look around the former liquor store...

     Sometime between September and January, some of that paneling on the corner of the awning fell off.

     The liquor store entrance.

     The liquor store has since been converted into somebody's office. While the main store has been stripped to the core, the ceiling in here looks to be original to SupeRx.

     The right side of the building.

     With this picture of the tiny, empty parking lot, that pretty much wraps up our look at the old SupeRx Food and Drug of Rockledge. Now let's begin our journey to the next stop, the former (technically never opened) Florida Choice of Rockledge:

      If we go South on Route 1 about 2 miles and then cross the railroad tracks, we'll find ourselves at the old Florida Choice. Let's take a look at it:

Florida Choice #638

224 Barton Boulevard, Rockledge, FL - Barton Commons

     Kroger was already prepared to make their big move from the tiny old SupeRx down the road to this much nicer and larger building. Kroger anticipated that move would occur sometime in late 1988. However, Kroger announced their Florida departure in July 1988, halting construction on this nearly completed building. As I mentioned earlier, this building and the old SupeRx were sold to Gooding's Supermarket, with Gooding's opting to use this building for their new store. While it was Gooding's who put the finishing touches on this building, this building still expresses the Florida Choice design. This store is an exact copy of the former Titusville Florida Choice store seen in Part 1 in just about every way, with the exception of the fancy curved detailing seen over the entryway here. This store lasted as Gooding's until 1997 when they pulled out of Brevard County. Since then, the leftmost third of this building has become a Bealls Outlet, the rightmost third has become a Brevard Health Alliance clinic, but the middle third has sat empty since Gooding's departure in 1997. And unlike the Titusville store, which was boarded up tight, we'll get a peek inside this building to have a small taste of what Florida Choice (well, Gooding's mostly) was like.

    Moving further to the left across the exterior. Behind those small rectangular windows were the old liquor store.

     The leftmost portion of the building, home to the piece of the old Florida Choice that Bealls Outlet took over.

     Like in Titusville, the exterior of the building is so massive, it's difficult to get all of it in one picture. I had to break everything into sections.

     The blue tile trim remains from this building's anticipated days as Florida Choice. Florida Choice's logo was blue, which is probably why they used that color.

     Looking into the entryway. The vestibule is set up exactly like what we saw in Titusville, minus the boards. The doors to the far left go into the old liquor store, while the remaining doors all led into the main store.

     And here begins our look inside to see what this place was all about. This is looking into the former liquor store. The liquor store went deeper into the building than this, however when Bealls Outlet carved out their portion of the building to move into, they took over the back portion of the liquor store too.

     Bealls Outlet's partition wall is in the background. Given the current state of the building and the configuration of this space, the old liquor store will probably be combined into the empty portion of the main store when or if something ever takes that over. 

     The first set of entrance and exit doors into the main store. The far right side of the vestibule would have been a mirror image of this, however the clinic now in that part of the building reconfigured the entryway for their purposes.

     Peeking inside the old left side vestibule. I see Gooding's left one of their signs behind over the door. The sign says "Gooding's - Carry out to your car is our service - No tipping please". Back in the day, Gooding's rivaled (and to some, exceeded) the quality and customer service that Publix offered and is known for today, and was a very nice place to shop. Today, the last remaining Gooding's just outside of Disney World in Orlando is a complete joke, but that's a post for another day.

     So what lies within the open door?...

     ...Our glimpse into what probably is the most well preserved interior remnant from Florida Choice out there. While I'm almost positive the ceiling and flooring are from Florida Choice, the pastel color scheme and decor remnants in the very back are more then likely a Gooding's artifact, as they were the ones to finish this building. I have no idea what kind of interior Kroger would have used in one of these stores, but more than likely it would have been something custom designed for this division and not the Kroger standard Bauhaus or Neon interiors that were used somewhere around the time these stores were built (as can be seen on The Mid-South Retail Blog in those links).

     Remember that squiggly tile pattern from here? The faint outline of that tile was about all we got to see inside the old Titusville Florida Choice. At least we get to see a bit more than that here. It looks to me like the portion of back wall that we can see in this picture was home to the meat department.

     You really can't get a more stereotypical 80's Florida supermarket color scheme than what you see here on the back wall.

     The wall you see to the right divides this unoccupied portion of the building from the clinic.

     Just a few more pictures from outside before moving on. You can see the entrance into the clinic in the background of this picture.

     When Kroger said they wanted to "go big" with Florida Choice, they really meant that both figuratively and literally.

     Almost done here...

     Going all the way to the back of the parking lot, I finally succeeded in getting the entire exterior in one picture. This was definitely one giant grocery store back when this place first opened. So with this I will wrap up our look at the former Rockledge Florida Choice store (that never actually opened). Now let's move on to some Bird's Eye aerial images of these two stores, starting with the old SupeRx Food and Drug:

Front - Due to the shape of the lot, this store got an oddly configured, and rather small parking lot.

Right Side

Back

Left Side

     And now Florida Choice:

Front - The clinic in the rightmost portion of the building had yet to open when these images were taken.

Right Side

Back

Left Side

     And now for some historic aerials courtesy of Google Earth, again, starting with SupeRx:

Former SupeRx Food and Drug - 2014

Former SupeRx Food and Drug - 2007

Former SupeRx Food and Drug - 1999 - This is the building in it's bowling alley days.

Former SupeRx Food and Drug - 1994

     Now it's Florida Choice's turn:

Former Florida Choice - 2014

Former Florida Choice - 2005 - Only the Bealls Outlet portion of the building is occupied at this point.

Former Florida Choice - 1999 - The building is completely empty.

Former Florida Choice - 1994 - And the building when Gooding's was still around.

     And finally, an overview of Barton Commons, the plaza in which the Florida Choice was to open in. The entire plaza opened in late 1988 with anchors Kmart, Bealls Department Store, and Gooding's (after Kroger bailed out before they could finish the Florida Choice). As we saw, the old Florida Choice was split up into three spaces after its life as a grocery store ended. As for the other anchors, the Bealls is still open, and the Kmart closed in the 2003 mass closure wave as they tried to emerge from bankruptcy. The Kmart is still empty 13 years later.

     And to conclude this post, and The Tale of Two Krogers series, here's a look down the front of Barton Commons from the old Kmart (Store #3666). This was one of the ugly late 80's Kmart stores, and was a pretty average store from that era. The parking lot of this building is roped off from the rest of the plaza, and it doesn't look like there are any plans in the works for this space at the moment. It looks like the landlord is just letting it sit. Anyway, I have many more pictures of this old Kmart to post to AFB on flickr at some point (don't ask me when).

     So that concludes our look at SupeRx Food and Drug and Florida Choice for the time being. There's a chance SupeRx or Florida Choice may pop up again on the blog, as there are some other interesting examples of both of those store's former locations out there. But that's the distant future. As for the near future, more Albertsons coming to the blog in two weeks, and in the even nearer future than that, Safeway Florida's official launch is in three days. I have a little something prepared for that event as well, although the official AFB Safeway Florida analysis won't be coming until July...

So until the next time,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger