Planned Albertsons #4447 / Publix #685
5450 East Busch Boulevard, Temple Terrace, FL
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| Today's post is a presentation of Hillsborough County retail |
Welcome everyone to what will be the first of four posts I have lined up for the coming months centered around the Albertsons stores (and more) in the Tampa suburb of Temple Terrace. Even though Temple Terrace is only a city of 27,000, it was home to a number of stores with some interesting backstories, and quite a bit of turbulence for our friend Albertsons too. In the 1990's, Albertsons attempted one store in town that flopped after only two years in business. A few years after that debacle, Albertsons attempted to come back to town with another new store just down the road from the failed location, but ended up aborting plans for the second store after some tension with the city council's demands for the new store. While it would have made the most sense to start at the beginning with the story of the original Temple Terrace Albertsons up the road, we'll actually be starting our trip to town with the story of Albertsons' failed second attempt at opening a store in Temple Terrace. While that seems like a strange place to start, the planned store ties in well with a few other places I want to bring up first, and it's also one of the shorter posts in this series too (so I'll save the much, much longer story of the first Albertsons for when I have a little more time to get that ready over my Christmas break!). Some really fun stuff to see here in Temple Terrace over the coming weeks, so let's get started and learn more about how Albertsons attempted a second chance here in the late 1990's:
While Temple Terrace lacks a true "downtown", the city tends to consider its commercial heart to be the intersection of Busch Boulevard and 56th Street. One of the busiest intersections in town, a number of big box centers occupy the crossroads, creating a "downtown" of sorts at least in terms of being a collection of businesses in one area. In the late 1990's, this intersection had suffered a few hits from retail struggles of the time, including the closure of a Phar-Mor in 1995, as well as the aging shopping centers at the northeast and southeastern quadrants bleeding tenants and starting to look a bit aged. In hopes of revitalizing the shopping centers at this intersection, the city began trying to attract new tenants to town, with one of the main focuses being the large vacancy left behind by Phar-Mor.
Looking to make a second attempt at Temple Terrace, Albertsons came forward as the primary prospect for the vacant Phar-Mor space in 1996. As part of the plans submitted to the city, Albertsons wanted to demolish the Phar-Mor building in exchange for a newbuild Albertsons prototype complete with an attached liquor store. Albertsons's new building would be constructed in tandem with an expansion by the neighboring Kmart store, who was looking to improve their adjoining building too as part of the area revitalization projects. Even though the city was happy to have another grocer move to this intersection (to compliment an existing Publix and Kash n' Karry on the southeast corner, and replace a Winn-Dixie that had recently closed on the northeast corner), there were a few snags that came with Albertsons' plans.
In order for Albertsons to fit its new attached liquor store onto the property, the company was requesting the city vacate a right of way for the side street, Beverly Drive, that ran alongside the existing Phar-Mor store. With controversy arising over increased traffic into the Kmart plaza from the construction of an Albertsons, locals were concerned that closing the side street could create additional access issues due to the amount of traffic Kmart already drew (oh, the days when Kmart drew that much traffic!); the addition of an Albertsons just expounding the existing traffic issues.
On top of that, the bigger sticking point over the construction of the new store was the fact that the new Albertsons would have a liquor store. Per the city's code, there had to be a 2,000 foot buffer between liquor stores. At the time Albertsons summitted its plans, there was already a liquor store within 2,000 feet of the new store site on the other side of Busch Boulevard. While the city wanted to welcome the Albertsons supermarket with open arms, they didn't want the liquor store, and that's where things started to turn south here.
Albertsons tried to get the city to grant the new store a variance to allow the liquor store, but the city wouldn't budge. Realizing the city wasn't going to go for the liquor store request, Albertsons made the rare concession (especially for the 1990's) to remove the liquor store from the plans - however, there was a catch. In order to pull the liquor store from the plans, Albertsons wanted the city to pay for a new traffic light at the shopping center's entrance on Busch Boulevard to improve access, as well as have the city pursue additional easements with surrounding properties.
The city did not want to take on the additional obligation of paying for the new traffic light, or get involved in the process of obtaining easements from private property owners. For the remainder of 1996, Albertsons and the city officials continued their process of going back and forth with each other. However, come January 1997, it appeared a deal was about to be made:
By this time, Albertsons had agreed to give up its liquor store, with the city agreeing to give up the Beverly Drive right of way, improving access points into the shopping center in response to the reconfiguration of the surrounding streets from the new store's construction, and agreeing to evaluate the necessity of an additional traffic light at the shopping center entrance on Busch Boulevard in the future.
The city submitted its final agreement to Albertsons in January 1997, with Albertsons signing off on the plans. The final plan set was voted on and approved by the city council in March 1997, officially clearing the way for Albertsons to begin construction of its new store.
So with the city and Albertsons both approving the plans, what happened? Why did Albertsons #4447 never break ground, when it looked like everything was good to go? Well...
For much of 1997, the city was trying to coordinate the Albertsons project with a few other redevelopment projects happening within the same shopping center, including the construction of a new Walgreens in front of the new Albertsons as well as Kmart's expansion. They city was hoping to have all three projects happen at once, however, it seemed Albertsons was getting extremely impatient waiting for the city to approve the other projects while they stood behind and waited with their already rubber stamped plans. In January 1998, Albertsons contacted city officials stating they were backing out of the project. Getting that news, the city was afraid this would create a ripple effect with the other adjoining projects falling apart, leading the city to scramble to find a new tenant for the Albertsons redevelopment site.
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| The old Phar-Mor! I miss Phar-Mor, it was a unique store. Too bad the company was essentially built on top of a scam, the repercussions of which lead to its eventual collapse in 2002. |
Even without a new tenant for the old Phar-Mor building, the city pressed on with the plans for the new Walgreens and the expansion of the Kmart, hopeful a new tenant would be found after two developers began inquiries into the the Phar-Mor space shortly after the announcement of Albertsons' departure.
With all the new construction happening, the city was hopeful something would pull through for the vacant Phar-Mor space. As you can see in the above article, quite a bit of change was coming to the intersection in 1998 with Walgreens' move across the street (the old store in the Winn-Dixie plaza shown above), Kmart's expansion, and a number of outparcels being demolished and replaced with new ones.
With all that moving around happening, a grocer with quite the old location of its own on the southeastern corner began to be intrigued by that old Phar-Mor building...
In July 1998, it was revealed Publix had signed on to construct a new store in place of Albertsons at the Phar-Mor site. Unlike all the back and forth with Albertsons, the Publix plans were speedily approved, as Publix kept much of what Albertsons designed with only minor modification (and no liquor store, as Publix wasn't big on liquor store operations at the time this store was being built).
Publix demolished the old Phar-Mor building in late 1998, with the new Publix opening on the Albertsons site September 2, 1999. The new Publix, store #685, replaced store #144 across the street, a Wing Store-era build hailing from 1968.
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| Photo courtesy of ferrett111 on flickr |
While Publix's move to the Albertsons site solved the problem of what would become of the old Phar-Mor space, Publix inadvertently created another problem - what would become of that company's old store. Turns out, old Publix #144 at Terrace Plaza would sit abandoned from its closure in 1999 until 2011, when the entire shopping center was demolished for a redevelopment plan that would later stall until the early 2020's.
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| Photo courtesy of ferrett111 on flickr |
Thankfully ferrett111 on flickr managed to capture a few photos of the abandoned Publix #144 in 2009, which we see here. After being expanded once in the 1970's, store #144 remained relatively untouched until the end - you can't get more 1970's Publix than this facade! I have no idea what interior this store closed with, but being that it closed in 1999, it could have been either Wavy Pastel or possibly the 1980's decor that came before it. Too bad ferrett111 only took exterior photos of this place in 2009, as it would have been interesting to see what Publix relics remained in here until the building finally came down.
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| Photo courtesy of ferrett111 on flickr |
In addition to those facade photos, Andy did manage to capture a photo of this store's tile mural too, one of the typical late 1970's/early 1980's farm and cornucopia designs (probably added when this store expanded in the 1970's). Before this store was demolished in 2011, there was a push to save this mural, a push that ultimately failed when it was revealed just how difficult it was to remove these tiles from the wall. A group of residents did come together to save some of the tile fragments from the demolition, which per the article, were to be used in a new artwork or pathway stepping stones somewhere in town (although I don't know if any of those projects ever came to be). Plenty more photos of the mural and the building's demolition at those links though, but for now, it's back to the present to the new store across the street:
Publix #685 is a pretty typical turn of the millennium Publix store, opening with the Metallic Marketplace decor and being remodeled accordingly since. What is interesting about this Publix store is that much like another planned Albertsons structure we explored recently in North Miami Beach, Publix kept Albertsons' site plan, tweaked the facade of the structure to match a Publix of the era, and left everything else the same. Even though Albertsons was originally denied the liquor store in their attempt to build here, the liquor store structure was still built, and that held true even after Publix became the grocer tenant. As we'll see later in the post, this building has the outline of an Albertsons, even though it never actually was one! (And what's even weirder is this is one of two examples of that happening in Florida too, considering the North Miami Beach situation).
According to one of the articles we saw before, the new Albertsons store and the remodeled Kmart were both supposed to feature a Spanish-style design to make both buildings feel a bit classier than their normal standard prototypes. While the Kmart building had a much more apparent one-off facade design, the Publix looked pretty typical for the era. Not sure if I would call Publix's facade Spanish-style (the arches, maybe?), but it does match the Kmart building next door well enough.
My visit to this Publix occurred while this store still had the Classy Market 3.0/Sienna decor, although it would be remodeled to Evergreen ca. 2022. Evergreen would mark the 4th decor package this store has had since it opened in 1999, with this store remodeling from its original Metallic Marketplace look to Classy Market 2.0 in the late 2000's, just to remodel again to Classy Market 3.0/Sienna in the mid-2010's.
Multiple remodels in, this store's original Metallic Marketplace-era "Entrance" decal over the front doors remain (with a matching "Exit" decal over the other door as well). Even in today's Evergreen-era, these decals still made the cut, being one of the few 1990's Publix relics you'll be able to find in the wild these days.
Stepping inside, the Entrance doors lead you to the pharmacy counter, located along the front wall. BOGO bins line the aisle in front of the pharmacy, with floral, the bakery, and the deli in the distance around the corner.
Next to the pharmacy is the floral counter. Originally located in the back with produce, floral was most likely moved up here in the Classy Market 3.0/Sienna remodel, taking the place of what was originally a greeting card nook. That original greeting card nook was actually a space set aside for an in-store bank branch, which Publix was still adding in new stores outside of Florida (particularly around Atlanta) in the early 2000's. As such, these greeting card nooks looked like an oddly-placed afterthought in these stores, with the modern floral placement looking much more original and continuous.
Moving into the front right corner, we find the bakery, looking like the standard Publix fare.
Next to the bakery along the right wall is the deli, which is also pretty typical Publix design too.
Here's a look back up aisle 1, which contains most of the "grand aisle". In addition to the deli islands, we find an assortment of drinks in aisle 1, which back in this store's early days would have been home to the pre-sliced bread loaves (to compliment the bakery).
Lastly in the grand aisle we find the produce department, located in the back right corner of the building.
The main produce wall signage occupies the wall space over the produce prep area, with the remainder of the wall space home to the giant artichoke graphic.
Of all of Publix's decor packages from the 1990's until now, sadly, Metallic Marketplace is by far the worst documented, with very few photos of it out there on the internet. Metallic Marketplace wasn't exactly rare either, used from roughly 1999 until 2004 in a few hundred stores, and remained in the wild until the late 2000's if not the very, very early 2010's at a few holdouts. Metallic Marketplace was essentially Wavy Pastel with corrugated metal background panels for that oh-so-early 2000's aesthetic. This is a decent overview of what Metallic Marketplace looked like, but it would have been nice to have a few more detailed shots of it preserved!
These last two photos have looked down the store's back wall, home to the dairy department. When this store first opened, Metallic Marketplace's signature wraparound (seen at the linked photo in the last description - I don't know what else to call that thing) would have held the dairy signs, wrapping around the grocery aisles for an interesting floating aesthetic. While taken from the front of the store, here's a photo of this store's wraparound from the Classy Market 2.0 days. While the wraparound typically survived the Classy Market 2.0 remodels stores of this style commonly received, they were all but ripped out in later Classy Market 3.0/Sienna remodels in the mid-late 2010's (like what happened here).
We'll zip through a few of this store's grocery aisles as we make our way across the building, starting here with aisle 5.
Had this store opened as intended as an Albertsons in the 1997/1998 timeframe, it most likely would have been a near clone to this store - a Blue and Green Awnings build with the open ceiling around perimeter. I actually liked that style of Albertsons, but that design only lasted for a year or two before Grocery Palace swooped in as its replacement.
In addition to that thought, if Albertsons opened at this site, I also wonder how long it would have lasted. Albertsons claimed the store up the road was a failure due to access issues, so I would hope this store would have done better sales-wise, as this is a busy corner with a lot going on. Even though we'll never really know, I feel that no matter what "what if" case happened involving Albertsons' tenure, Publix would have eventually ended up over here in some form to replace that old store across the street (although this would have been a much more exciting tour had this been a true Publixsons and not just a Publix built where an Albertsons was supposed to go).
One last grocery aisle here before we return to the back wall:
In these early 2000's Publix stores, the meat and seafood counters are located in the back left corner, just before the transition into frozen foods. Even though I've seen it many times, I still find it weird to see the Classy Market 3.0/Sienna "Meats" sign mounted onto the black background of that beam!
The second to last grocery aisle, aisle 15, is split between lunch meats (on my left) and frozen foods (on my right).
The last aisle, aisle 16, is entirely home to frozen foods.
Leaving the grocery aisles, we find the wine department in the front left corner of the building.
From wine, here's a look across the store's front end. Nine check lanes total are present, with the service desk in an island at the very end.
A decent little crowd at the front end of this store during my visit, which occurred only a few days before Christmas 2019 (and probably explains some of the hustle and bustle too).
When this store first opened, the customer service desk would have been located here along the front wall, underneath the lower ceiling. With the service desk relocated to the island during the Classy Market 3.0/Sienna remodel, the lower ceiling just looks awkward now, although this store did a good job of repurposing this area into staging for order pickups.
Back outside, here's a look down the front walkway toward what would have been Albertsons' liquor store, had this store been built as an Albertsons and had the city allowed it.
The obvious liquor store addition is what gives away that this site was originally planned for someone else other than Publix. While from street level the addition may not look like much, we'll take a look from the air to get a feel of what happened here:
That piece with the lighter color ceiling is very much an intended liquor store!
Being that Publix wasn't into liquor stores as much in the late 1990's, the space that Albertsons intended for such use was divided into two smaller storefronts most recently housing an H&R Block and The UPS Store, common co-inhabitants in a Publix anchored plaza. Had Albertsons opened here but were disallowed liquor sales by the city, I'd have to guess Albertsons would have built out the liquor store as intended but kept it empty, waiting a few years before trying for a liquor license again (as had happened in the past elsewhere).
Other than the very Albertsons-esque site plan and backstory, this is a pretty plain Publix these days. However, I promise you things will get much more interesting as we continue our exploration of Temple Terrace retail, as next time we'll be heading next door to check out the former Kmart this Publix is neighbors with. It's been a long time since I've done a Kmart-related post, so I'm looking forward to this next installment myself, as that old Kmart is pretty interesting. Be sure to check out MFR in two weeks for that post, with posting returning to AFB on December 6th for what was (in my opinion) the most interesting supermarket in Temple Terrace!
Be sure to come back for all that, and until the next post,
The Albertsons Florida Blogger
