Former Albertsons #4377 - Winter Haven, FL

Albertsons #4377

1965 8th Street NW, Winter Haven, FL - Spring Lake Plaza

     Wonderful Winter Haven, Florida, home to a charming little downtown, numerous lakes, Legoland Florida, and the birthplace of Florida's favorite supermarket chain, Publix. However, on the northern side of town, tucked into a rather nondescript shopping center that's seen plenty of tenants come and go over the years, we find this building. This beige building with a slight Southwestern/Mission style architectural flare was once home to Winter Haven's Albertsons store, one of two Albertsons stores to have opened in Publix's home turf of Polk County. Unlike the other Polk County Albertsons store in Lakeland, the former Winter Haven Albertsons doesn't have as spectacular of a backstory, having a rather average 19 year run during the company's time in Winter Haven.

     The Winter Haven Albertsons opened on August 24, 1989 on an outparcel of the existing Spring Lake Plaza. I know it sounds odd to build a supermarket on a shopping center's outparcel lot, but when you see how the plaza is arranged later in this post, the setup doesn't appear all too strange. The photo above, dug up by YonWooRetail2, shows the Winter Haven Albertsons store on its opening day, certainly looking like a spectacle with its large size and grandiose exterior.

     For 19 years not much changed here at the Winter Haven Albertsons store. A remodel occurred sometime around the turn of the 2000's, refreshing this store's original Blue and Gray Market decor to something new. I haven't been able to figure out what decor package this store closed with (I really want to say it was Blue and Green Awnings, but I don't know for sure). YonWooRetail2 recreated the above photo to show what this Albertsons location would have looked like during the 2000's.

     It was on July 30, 2008 the announcement was made that the Winter Haven Albertsons store would be closing due to underperformance. This announcement came only a month after Albertsons had announced that they would be selling 49 of their Florida locations to Publix. It would take a month for this store to close for good, with Albertsons' final day of business here in Winter Haven being August 30, 2008. While outlasting its sister store in Lakeland by 15 years, Albertsons' time in Polk County was certainly a tough ride. This store sat empty for 7 years before it was announced that CenterState Bank would be moving their operations center into half of this former Albertsons building. Currently, only the right half of this former Albertsons building is occupied by the bank's offices. The rest of the building remains empty, and more than likely the remaining empty portion of this building will become home to more office space when the time comes.

     CenterState Bank's remodel didn't change any of Albertsons' old exterior architecture. Besides some new paint and the addition of those lights along the upper wall of the building 

(where Albertsons exterior signage would have once been placed), that's all that was modified. The interior work involved a complete gut and rebuild, as we'll see shortly.

     Over on the left side of the building, we find the old liquor store and the main store's pharmacy side entrance.

     While I usually end my posts with some pictures of the old Albertsons liquor stores, today we'll be starting off with some pictures of the old liquor store. Above is the old liquor store entrance, which was incorporated into the left side entryway at this store rather than given its own distinct archway.

     Peeking through the windows into the liquor store's interior, it was too dark to really see anything in here.

     Playing with the lighting settings on my computer helped brighten the photo a bit, but you still can't tell much from this.

     YonWooRetail2 had much better luck with the lighting when he visited this store, compared to the situation during my visit. He took the above photo as well as the following photo. Unlike most cases, Albertsons stripped out just about everything they could have in here, not leaving much of a trace of any old decor remnants. The ceiling and lighting are original to Albertsons, although the flooring in here looks to have been replaced during this store's remodel from the turn of the 2000's (as the original floors would have looked like this).

     Moving away from the liquor store, let's begin to turn our attention to the main portion of this former Albertsons. Panning to the camera just a bit to the right from the liquor store entrance, we see the store's old left side entrance straight ahead.

     The original swinging entry and exit doors are still in place here from Albertsons. The entrance door was the one to the right, the exit door being the one on the left.

     Unfortunately, those doors were about the only original thing to remain from Albertsons as we turn our attention to the interior of the main store building now. As you can see here, for the conversion of the right half of this building into offices for CenterState Bank, the entire main portion of this building was gutted to the wall studs. Peeking through the left side doors, this is what the left side entry vestibule looks like now - nothing particularly interesting.

     Turning the corner, here are a few photos looking into the gutted left half of this former Albertsons store. This half of the store would have been home to the pharmacy and health and beauty departments (which would have been around the corner to the left), as well as the dairy department. Like the interior photos of the old liquor store, these photos also turned out quite dark on me. After playing with some settings, we can see this half of the building is currently being used by CenterState Bank as storage.

     I believe I've shared this story with you guys a few times in the past, but I'll tell it again as it does go along with this post: After I took my last interior photos of the the empty left half of the old Albertsons building, I stepped back toward the parking lot, hoping to get a few additional exterior photos before heading off to my next destination. As I was walking in the road in front of the building, a lady ran out of the bank's offices and began asking me why I was taking pictures of the place. Having noticed a 'For Lease' sign by the liquor store, my quick thinking then sprang into action. I responded to the woman that I was representing a client who was interested in finding office space in the area, and the empty portion of this building was one of the options I was was going to submit for the client's consideration. After telling her my story, the lady's only response was, "That space isn't for rent!" After a little more playing dumb to ease the tension, the lady then told me to call the number on the sign in the liquor store's window for more information before she returned into the building. I'm just glad I was able to talk myself out of that one, but I didn't stick around this place for long after going through that! I don't want to jinx anything, but in my 6 years or so of actively documenting retail buildings, I've only been confronted 4 times for photo taking - every time taking exterior photos, never photos inside a store. Two of those four times were by curious bystanders who wanted to tell me more about the building I was photographing (which was pretty neat), another time was the story I just mentioned, and I had another not-so-great experience while out getting retail photos as well. That incident didn't actually involve me taking photos directly, but was more of a matter of me being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

     Anyway, by the time I was confronted here, I fortunately had most the photos I needed of this place. I took this photo from the car's window on my way out of here, my only one showing a clear view of the side of the building that was converted into the bank's offices. I wouldn't doubt it if my lady friend was still looking through those windows to see if I had left, so before she returns, let's get the heck out of this place!

     Here's a quick look down the right side of this building...

     ...and here's a quick look at the back, specifically the old receiving docks for Albertsons.

     So that's what the Winter Haven Albertsons is like these days. Of course, this happened to be my first stop of the day, so having that lady confront me about my picture taking wasn't the best way to kick off a day of retail travels. However, I'm happy to report that things only got better from here, so I can't complain.

     Anyway, here's an overview of the entirety of Spring Lake Plaza, showing how the Albertsons was essentially built as an outparcel to the plaza. For a few years Albertsons even shared this plaza with a Winn-Dixie, the original grocery tenant to Spring Lake Plaza. Speaking of that Winn-Dixie, let's take a quick look at it:

Winn-Dixie #765

1160 Havendale Boulevard NW, Winter Haven, FL - Spring Lake Plaza

     Winn-Dixie was one of the two original anchors to Spring Lake Plaza upon its opening in 1985 (the other being a movie theater). Only 4 years after opening here, Winn-Dixie had to deal with the competition of the new Albertsons store that opened in its parking lot, as well as competition from a Publix less than a mile to the south. Winter Haven and Winn-Dixie never had a very good relationship, so with all the competition nearby, Winn-Dixie ended up closing their store in Spring Lake Plaza around 1995. In the years after Winn-Dixie closed, their former space was been divided between a Dollar Tree and a gym. The gym that was previously in the right half of the Winn-Dixie building had since closed, although a new gym has opened in this space since I took these photos way back when.

     Here's another look at the old Winn-Dixie space.

     Spring Lake Plaza's other anchor is this movie theater, which is located at the southern end of the plaza behind the old Albertsons building. The movie theater is currently affiliated with Cobb, who very well may have been running this theater since the beginning (but I don't know for sure).

     Also during my visit to this plaza, a carnival was set up in a portion of the parking lot. I took a few photos of it, because who doesn't like a few pictures of a carnival thrown into a blog post?

     Now that we've seen the old Albertsons, the old Winn-Dixie, and a carnival, it's now time to take a look at some historic satellite imagery. First up, some Bird's Eye View images, courtesy of Bing Maps:

Front - These images were taken when this building was still fully abandoned.

Right Side

Back

Left Side

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

Former Albertsons #4377 - 2018

Former Albertsons #4377 - 2012

Albertsons #4377 - 2006

Albertsons #4377 - 1994

Future Albertsons #4377 - 1979 - It looks like a restaurant and a motel or two had to be taken out in order to accommodate the Albertsons store that would eventually be built on this site.

     To wrap up this post, here's another photo of the Winter Haven Albertsons now, looking quite peaceful as the sun was about to set on this particular evening when YonWooRetail2 visited. It seems like the evening would have been a better time to visit this place than very early in the morning, when all of the employees were hanging around here watching me!

     Not only did YonWoo have better luck photographing this former Albertsons store than I did, but he did a good job digging up some old pictures of this store when it was still in business! The above photo appears to have been taken sometime during the 2000's, as the Sav-On pharmacy signage had been added to the exterior when this photo was taken.

     So that's all I have to say for now. If you ever feel like visiting this place for yourself, remember to watch out for my lady friend, as she'll have her eyes on you!

Until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger

How Shopping Became a Pleasure - A Look at The First Publix Store

     Earlier this month, Publix celebrated the 86th anniversary of their founding. In those 86 years, Publix has grown into a chain of over 1,120 stores with locations in 6 (soon to be 7) states, and has become the nation's 5th largest grocery chain, and the United States' 13th largest retailer overall. Publix has become a powerful force in the grocery world (especially in Florida) over the last 86 years, with no signs of slowing down. However, today I want to focus on something else. Rather than featuring a typical modern (or modern-ish) Publix, like the early 2016 opened store in the photo above, I want to take a trip back to the very beginning - September 6, 1930 to be exact - to take a look at the original Publix located in downtown Winter Haven, FL. While the original Publix hasn't operated as a Publix in nearly 75 years, it's still amazingly well preserved as we'll soon see. So let's begin our tour of how shopping became a pleasure...

The Original Publix Store (Publix #1)

58 4th St. NW, Winter Haven, FL

     This little storefront you see here in downtown Winter Haven was the home of the first Publix store, which opened on September 6, 1930. Last year for Publix's 85th anniversary, I wrote this post explaining the background of Publix's founding, and Publix founder George Jenkins' motive for breaking away from managing the Piggly Wiggly store located next door to the first Publix. I'll go into a little background history in this post, but today's post will be mostly focused on the building itself. If you'd like a more detailed explanation of the history of Publix, please feel free to read that post I linked to.

     Other than some new paint and a new awning, this building still looks exactly the same as Publix left it when they relocated to their new store down the street in 1940. This building was built in 1916, and has housed many tenants other than the first Publix over the last hundred years. The most recent occupant of the Publix #1 building is a Mexican restaurant called El Norteño, which opened in July 2015. I found this article that talks about the new restaurant opening the the space originally home to the first Publix store.

     Closeup of the original storefront. All of this is original too.

     This is the building immediately to the right of the original Publix. From what I've researched, this is the building where the Piggly Wiggly was that George Jenkins managed. In early 1930, the Piggly Wiggly changed owners, and as manager, George Jenkins felt he should visit the new owner to introduce himself and talk about plans for the store's future. So George Jenkins traveled all the way to Atlanta for this meeting, just to be snubbed by the new owner. This enraged George Jenkins, and caused him to quit his job as manager of the Piggly Wiggly and open his own grocery store next door. Within a year, after a fierce pricing war and one-upsmanships, Publix drove the Piggly Wiggly out of business, and the rest is history.

     An overview of some of the other buildings on the block. Downtown Winter Haven is very quaint, and very historic (outside of being home to the first Publix as well). If you're ever in the area, I recommend taking a quick drive down the main street, Central Ave., or taking a little walk around. I have a few more photos of downtown Winter Haven coming up shortly, but a few last things about the original Publix:

Photo courtesy of Publix.com - The Publix photo timeline at that link is pretty interesting to take a look at!

     The photo above shows the original Publix store back when it was a Publix sometime in the 1930's. They've come a long way when you compare this to the photo of the modern Publix at the beginning of this post. All of the little details you saw from the present day photos are also present in the historic photo. 

Photo courtesy of Josh Hallet's flickr photostream

     And here's something neat that Publix did for their 75th anniversary back in 2005. The home of their original store was vacant at the time, so Publix decided to decorate it like it would have looked back in the 30's when Publix was still here! This only lasted for that one year to celebrate their 75th anniversary, but it would have been neat if they left the building like this and turned it into a Publix museum (like what Walmart did with their first store). 

     A quick screengrab from Bing Maps showing all of the buildings on the block.

     As I mentioned before, Publix relocated from their original location on 4th St. in 1940 to a larger store, which was considered the first "modern Publix Supermarket". Many people consider this next building to the be the original Publix, even though the storefront a few blocks away was technically the first. Let's take a walk over to the 1940 store from the original store, and take in a few of the other sights along Central Avenue in downtown Winter Haven as we make our way to the relocated Publix #1:

    Turning the corner from 4th St and looking east along downtown's main street, Central Avenue. The next few photos are just some random photos of downtown that I took as I made the short walk from the original Publix to its relocation.

     A small breezeway between two restaurants.

     Looking west on Central Ave.

     Closeup of the large neon sign hanging over the front entrance of the Ritz Theater. While the sign looks old, it turns out it isn't. I discovered this sign was only installed in 2013. Even though it's new, they did a really good job replicating a historic theater marquee sign to match the historic vibe of downtown Winter Haven.

     And there it is straight ahead - the second location of the original Publix. 

The Original Publix Supermarket (Relocation of the store on 4th St.)

197 W. Central Ave, Winter Haven, FL

     This building is where the original Publix moved to after establishing itself as a successful grocery store. This new store was considered George Jenkin's "dream store" and a "food palace", and included such features as "piped-in music, air conditioning, cold cases for frozen and refrigerated items, in-store donut and flower shops, and electric-eye automatic doors." Here's a photo of what this store looked like back in the 1940's. Other than having the top of the center glass block panel chopped off, this building is also very well preserved, and is still very recognizable as a former Publix. This store was the first of Publix's Art Deco store prototype to be built. These art deco style store were primarily located in downtown areas, as the era of the surburban shopping center had yet to take off when this model was introduced in the early 1940's. When suburban shopping centers began to become more commonplace in the mid to late 50's, Publix stopped building these tiny art deco stores and switched to their most famous design of all time: The Publix Wing Store. Many of these tiny art deco style Publix stores still exist, and are very well preserved. For example, here's a creative reuse of one of these art deco style Publix stores in St. Petersburg.

     Currently, the 1940 Publix is home to St. Matthew Regenerations Thrift Store. From what I can tell, this thrift store has been here a really long time.

    The windows and the marble trim are all original to Publix. The marble trim under the windows was a design feature Publix used in their stores all the way through the late 70's.

     Another view of the windows. As you can tell, I visited this store around Christmas time.

     Looking in through the front door for a peek at what the interior currently looks like. The thrift store wasn't open for the day yet, so this is all we'll be able to see of the interior. The ceiling in this front part of the building looks like something out of 1940, but it looks like much of the rest of the building has been gutted or modified over time. In the very back it looks like there is an exposed ceiling, which is not original. The first ten photos you can click on at this link (other than the one of the parade) show what this store looked like in the 40's, including interior pictures from right before the grand opening! It's pretty neat seeing what this store looked like inside back in 1940, and I highly recommend clicking though those photos.

     And a final parting photo from the 1940 Publix.

     And here's a quick Bird's Eye aerial image of the building. The skinny addition coming off from the right side of the main building was added on after Publix left I believe. The buildings behind the old Publix aren't a part of the old Publix.

     So that's pretty much it from the original Publix stores. I really don't know when the 1940 store closed, but I believe it was replaced by either the Northgate Plaza store on 6th Street, or Southeast Plaza store on Cypress Gardens Boulevard. Both of those stores date back to the Wing Store era, although both were later rebuilt in the 2000's. However, if you'd like to see some additional historic Publix photos, this article has a bunch from different Publix stores all over the state, including a few from the two original Winter Haven stores I just covered.

UPDATE 9/28/2016: Commentor duckman66 shared a link to a very interesting publication from the Lakeland Ledger published in 1980 to commemorate the Publix's 50th anniversary. It's a fascinating read about Publix's first 50 years in business, and I highly suggest reading it (it's a bit long however, so plan a little time if you want to read the entire thing). Here's the link: http://bit.ly/2d3WXUY

     To officially conclude this post, I decided to include this picture of the man who started it all, George "Mr. George" Jenkins, looking snazzy in that custom made Publix suit jacket. This photo was sent in a while ago by flickr user Otis "Joe" Smith, and I believe it dates back to the 80's. George Jenkins was very active with Publix all the way until his death in 1996 at the age of 88, and was very well liked by his employees. Even after becoming wheelchair bound due to a stroke in 1989, he still continued to work for the company and visit stores. To this day his legacy lives on as Publix continues to grow into new markets and continues to grow stronger. Still to this day, Publix places a photo of Mr. George in every one of their stores (usually behind the customer service counter), showing that they will continue to uphold the beliefs their founder laid out for them 86 years ago.

So until the next post,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger