Former Albertsons #4466 - Port St. Lucie, FL

Albertsons #4466

900 SW St. Lucie West Boulevard, Port St. Lucie, FL

Cashmere Corners

     Oh, the once mighty St. Lucie West Albertsons. A store that at one time many people loved to shop at. A store that at one time was one of the best Albertsons stores in the state in terms of sales, and one which had a sign on the wall stating, "We're not going anywhere anytime soon. We're your neighborhood Albertsons." (It was something close to that anyway). A store that seemed like it was going to fight to the bitter end. A store that now sits empty and lifeless, and has been that way for two years now, those labelscars still looking fresh. The mighty St. Lucie West Albertsons #4466 opened its doors on May 3, 2000, and served its last shoppers on June 9, 2012, when 13 of the last 17 Florida Albertsons stores closed their doors for good (although the Key West store technically closed a little earlier than the other 12). 

     I seriously thought the St. Lucie West Albertsons was going to be one of the last to close in Florida. In theory I wasn't too far off with that prediction, since making it to the final 17 was quite enough of an achievement to begin with. This was one of the stores I personally visited quite a few times over the years, and I have to say this store always seemed to draw a bit of a crowd. Employees at this store would always tell me this store did really good. I remember times when the line at the meat and seafood counter here was twenty people long. I even knew many people that would drive out of their way, even from different counties, just to shop at this Albertsons since it was the last one left (at the time) between Vero Beach and Oakland Park.   

     However, all that support wasn't enough to save the St. Lucie West Albertsons. I remember the day the closings for those 13 stores were announced, and reading through the list of the closing stores. I was in disbelief that St. Lucie West was among them. I wasn't until after doing some thinking that I realized the four Florida stores Albertsons saved were the 3 oldest remaining stores (Clearwater, Altamonte Springs, and Oakland Park - all of which opened in the 70's and were in buildings Albertsons owned, meaning less overhead) and the largest (Largo, a former Jewel-Osco store that was almost 70,000 square feet, and located in one of the busiest shopping centers in Pinellas County). St. Lucie West had the fact that is was a newer, leased store going against it. Newer stores would have higher rent, and going from the fact this shopping center had quite a few vacancies when I visited here, the rent here probably wasn't cheap. A local who was very familiar with this store told me in an e-mail that Albertsons did sign a 10 year lease for this store back in 2010, meaning Albertsons still has control over this space. I just don't know why Albertsons would sign a 10 year lease, just to close this store two years later. 

     It was quite the sad sight to come back to this once mighty store and see its empty shell sitting lifeless. This Albertsons, as mentioned earlier, is located in the St. Lucie West neighborhood of Port St. Lucie. St. Lucie West is one of Port St. Lucie's three major shopping districts, with the other two being the Route 1 corridor on the east side of town (where Port St. Lucie's other Albertsons, store #4362, was located - a story for another day) and Tradition, located out west of Interstate 95 in the southwest part of town. St. Lucie West is a newer development, constructed in the late 80's after developer Thomas J. White lured the New York Mets into built their spring training stadium out here. However, most of the retail didn't begin to appear in St. Lucie West until the mid/late 90's and early 2000's. St. Lucie West's commercial strip along St. Lucie West Boulevard is getting close to buildout, which makes it surprising to me that nothing has tried to move into this old Albertsons yet. 

     As for the store itself, the St. Lucie West Albertsons was a typical Plaza model store from the early 2000's, which also had accompanying the Plaza interior (or Theme Park or Grocery Palace interior depending on your naming preference). The typical characteristics of a Plaza model Albertsons are that large arch over the entryway, and the exit being offset to one of the sides of the entryway. You can see all of these characteristics in the photos above and below. 

     Now it's time for us to take a closer look at this store. This is a better photo of the typical Plaza store entryway setup. The entrance is right in front of me, with the exit being that other set of doors a little further down. Cart storage would have originally been behind those windows between the two sets of doors, however, this store received a weird remodel around 2009 that stripped out most of its unique Plaza interior characteristics, leaving the most generic, bare bones version of The Plaza interior left inside. The original cart storage area was turned into a 10 for $10 deals/sale items aisle, with the carts now stored outside the store to the left and right of the entryway on the walkway you see above.     

     Here's a clearer view down the walkway that runs along the front of the store.

     I tried to take a photo looking up into the arch in front of the entryway to show just how high up it goes, but the effect isn't quite the same in the photo as seeing it in person.

     This old payphone stand was located off to the left side of the entryway doors. I would have to assume this phone probably wasn't here for years even when Albertsons was still open. It's extremely rare nowadays to find one of these still operational, although I saw a Kmart in the last year that still had one working. (Just to note: that was not meant as a Kmart joke - I really saw one there!). 

     "We are now closed" signs still hanging two years later. During my visit here I actually saw a woman walk up the these doors and just stare at them for a while like she didn't know this store had closed. I saw her and told her the Albertsons closed two years ago, and she replied to me "No inglés", then walked away. I'm still not sure where she came from or went off to. 

     Anyway, I'm sure everyone is curious to see what the interior of this place looks like, so let's take a peek through the glass...

     And we see remnants of this store's original Plaza interior are still intact as we take a glimpse through the entry doors. I always thought it was an interesting touch to have that tile Albertsons logo on the floor right as you walked in. The restrooms were through that doorway to the left. There was originally a Starbucks in that area where the checkered tiles are straight ahead, with the bakery along the back wall right in front of us, behind where the grocery aisles used to be. If you turned left after the restrooms you would have first entered the prepared foods area, followed by the deli along the left side wall. The main Pharmacy counter was on the other side of that island in the right part of the photo.

     Moving a little over to the right on the entry doors and we can see a little glimpse into the produce department, which was located in the back left corner of this store, just to the left of the bakery. 

     Here's a closeup of some of the remnants of the bakery department and its decor. That doorway to the right of the 'Pastries and Donuts' awning led into the backroom. The bakery counter would have ran from the backroom door to that angled wall in the very left of the photo, then angled in to make a bakery alcove.

    Here's a closeup of some of the old produce graphics (on the left). The produce graphics were supposed to look like old time advertisements, and each one had its own spotlight over it. It's hard to make out what the four in this photo say since the zoom on my phone isn't the greatest. That brown area to the right of the produce signs is the bakery alcove I mentioned before, however the graphics of cakes and cookies that were originally on there were taken down.

     One last look at the left side of the store before heading down that row of windows toward the exit doors. 

     Along that wall to the right of the pharmacy express drop-off counter was the original home of the customer service counter and a DFS Dry Cleaners drop-off. During the 2009 remodel, the customer service counter was moved over where the old photo center counter was in the front right corner of the store, and the cleaners were removed entirely. This wall was then used for more sale items, like the old cart storage area. Also, originally there would have been a wall separating the cart storage area and the aisle with the customer service counter. The front of this wall facing the carts would have had "Welcome to you neighborhood Albertsons" on it, and the back of this wall would have been the Albertsons Reading Center, with racks of books and magazines lining that wall. This wall was also removed during the 2009 remodel.   

     Now looking in through the exit doors, we can see the fake decorative windows left behind from the Plaza interior. One of the illusions of the Plaza interior was to create an individual feel for all of the departments, like as if you were shopping in multiple stores in an old fashioned downtown plaza. That open doorway straight ahead was originally used to store the clothes from the dry cleaners. To the right side of this wall ahead of me was the floral department, and if one was to walk to the right and into the main part of the store, that's where the checkouts were located.

     I wasn't able to get any good views of the right side interior of this store. If you look through the small opening into the store you can kind of see the old meat department alcove in the far back, and part of the awning from the florist counter. Behind that wall with the bulletin board was what always seemed to look like an abandoned cafe, which was always used for storage during the times I shopped here. I mentioned earlier this store once had a Starbucks, which I believe was there since the beginning. That was over by the entrance though, so I don't know if that little cafe was ever used for anything.  

     Heading back outside now, and looking down the front part of the main store from the exit doors to the entrance. 

     Here's a view of the exterior of the right half of the main store. The Liquor store is under that archway partially blocked by the walkway roof and the tree. Let's head over there and check that out...

     Walking from the main store down to the Liquor store. Albertsons used to have palates of mulch and other outdoor items lining this walkway when they were open. 

     Closeup of an old emergency exit door. I believe this door was right behind the old Photo Center/post-2009 Customer Service Desk.

     Approaching the liquor store, which is behind that first set of doors on the left.

     And here's an exterior shot of the Liquor store at this former Albertsons. The archway over this Liquor store is a mini version of the archway over the main entrance. The 'Liquor' labelscar is still visible.

    Liquor store entryway. I'm surprised Albertsons left all of their hours and lettering on the windows here. All of that was scratched off the windows on the main store, leaving only the entrance and exit decals. 

     Albertsons even left their name up! Now for a peek inside:

     A perfectly intact example of The Plaza's Liquor store decor, lettering and all. Pretty much every Albertsons liquor store from the Superstore model on had the exact same layout, or the reverse of it (depending on which side of the main store it was on). Glass door coolers on the far back wall, open coolers on the right, and approx. 4 aisles for wine and liquor. Compare the layout here to the layout at the former Palm Bay Albertsons Liquor store, which dates back to 1994. Nearly identical layout. Here's a few more interior shots:  

       Now we've covered the main store and the liquor store, but out trip to the St. Lucie West Albertsons isn't done yet. There's still one more thing to look at...

     And that would be the former Albertsons Express gas station! Albertsons Express gas stations were first introduced in 1997, and Albertsons quickly began building gas stations at their stores across the country after that, adding them to new and existing stores. It was another feature Albertsons could add to their longtime goal of having a one stop shopping experience for their customers. I don't quite know the exact number, but I think approx. 20 Albertsons Express gas stations were built in Florida. Around 2008 or so, right around the time of the sale of the 49 Albertsons stores to Publix, Albertsons discontinued the Albertsons Express gas stations in Florida, selling most off to independent operators, which you can see above from all the Texaco signage (however the Texaco has since closed and this former Albersons Express sits abandoned once again). The Albertsons Express here, however, was unique because it was the only Albertsons Express in Florida that was built attached to the main shopping center. Usually Albertsons Express gas stations were detached and built near the edge of the parking lot.   

     The 'Express' sign still on the building is left over from this gas station's days as Albertsons Express. You can still see the faint scar from the Albertsons logo to the left of the word Express. According to some online research, this gas station became a Citgo after closing as an Albertsons Express, and then switched to Texaco sometime before closing again. 

     All of the fixtures were left inside the old convenience store after it closed. The checkout counter was off to the left in this photo.

     One more look inside the convenience store before going back out.

     Former Albertsons Express/Texaco road sign on St. Lucie West Boulevard. This sign is extremely small when driving by, making it hard to read the prices on the sign (if there were any).

     And a couple of photos of the main Albertsons road sign out on St. Lucie West Boulevard, with the Albertsons logo blacked out. 

     This was a nice surprise! A local who shopped at this store fairly often, but wished to remain anonymous, sent us in a map of the layout of the Albertsons from before the mentioned 2009 remodel (click on the map to see an enlarged view of it). It looks pretty close to what I remember from shopping here. This was pretty much the basic layout of a Florida Plaza Albertsons, although some stores were built with a reversed layout of this.   

     Before we get into the satellite imagery, I just wanted to comment on some of the local competition. A little further west on St. Lucie West Boulevard is a Publix and a Walmart Supercenter, however, when I was doing some research on the area, I discovered plans for a new Walmart Neighborhood Market and Aldi at this same intersection. Walmart is planning to built a new Neighborhood Market and accompanying shopping center on one of the last large, undeveloped commercial lots in St. Lucie West (although a Walmart Supercenter is just a little over a mile west of here). The Treasure Coast's first Aldi will be built on an out parcel of that Home Depot. Both stores plan to open in late 2014/early 2015. I find it interesting that neither of these stores seemed to show interest in the empty Albertsons building. Walmart Neighborhood Market has been taking over many former Albertsons recently, and Aldi has taken over half of many former Albertsons, like we saw in Palm Bay. Maybe the Albertsons was still open when these stores were shopping for locations in the area. Or maybe Albertsons, since they still hold the lease, wouldn't let these grocery stores take over their space, although I don't see why Albertsons would care if another grocery store took over their old store. They completely left the area. Does Albertsons want to reopen the once mighty St. Lucie West Albertsons? Probably not, but my hopes for an Albertsons Florida revival won't be completely crushed until those final four stores meet their end. 

     UPDATE 6/25/2014: Apparently, Walmart's plans for a neighborhood market at this intersection were rejected by the PSL city council back in May. However, it seems like they're going back to the drawing board to try to win over the city council once again. A commentor left a link to an article about this in the comments section of this post. If Walmart's plans don't get approved once again, they were hinting at taking over this Albertsons for their Neighborhood Market, although there are no definite plans for that at this time. Check out the article for more info.

     Bing Maps didn't have any Bird's Eye imagery available for this area, so we'll just jump right to the historic aerial images, courtesy of Google Earth:

Albertsons #4466 - 2012 - This image must have been taken earlier in the year before this store closed. The former Albertsons Express is at the top of the image.

Albertsons #4466 - 2004

Still under construction here - Future Albertsons #4466 - 1999

And a whole lot of nothing, back when that described most of St. Lucie West -  Future Albertsons #4466 - 1994

     And I thought I'd finish this post with a few of my mementos that I collected from the St. Lucie West Albertsons:

     Albertsons Pharmacy giveaway magnet (they had a whole basket of these in the store at one time), a staple on my refrigerator. Now that I think about it, this store's pharmacy was never given the usual SavOn signage. It was always just called "Albertsons Pharmacy". 

    I also found a receipt from this store after digging through some old papers.

     I actually paid this store a visit during it's closing sale. I've been to many store closing sales over the years, but this one stood out to me more than anything. I took these price tags off of some empty shelves I walked by. They're stamped with the store number 4466 on the top if you look closely. One of my two biggest Albertsons regrets was not taking photos of this store during that day I was at the closing sale. However, I didn't think of taking photos of these Albertsons, compiling the store list and starting this blog until a few weeks after all of these stores closed.  

     One final look at the exterior of abandoned Albertsons #4466, with a view of the large empty parking lot for effect.

     And a better zoomed in view of the exterior. 

     And as the sun now sets on the former St. Lucie West Albertsons, we will conclude this post with the blacked out road sign at the Cashmere Boulevard entrance to the plaza. No matter what the future may hold for the former mighty St. Lucie West Albertsons, it's legacy will forever live on here on the Albertsons Florida Blog, as with many others to come.  

So Until Next Time,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger 

Summer Schedule

     Hello everyone!

     Now that the Memorial Day Weekend has passed, it's now the unofficial start of the summer season! I figured now would be a good time for me to announce the Albertsons Florida Blog summertime posting schedule for everyone. The next few months are going to be relatively slow here due to personal matters. I have only one post per month scheduled through August, and my normal twice a week Flickr uploads will be on hold until August beginning June 10th. All new posts on The Albertsons Florida Blog will go up on the first Saturday of each month. This month's post will be an extensive tour of another former Florida Albertsons, and it's one that I've actually gotten a few requests for. It's a post you don't want to miss! July and August will feature two shorter Albertsons posts to hold us over through the summer. I hope to have everything back up and running at a normal pace in August.

     Anyway, I hope everyone has a happy and safe summer, and hope to see you here for our new posts on June 7th, July 5th, and August 2nd! 

Until then,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger   

Former Albertsons #4416 - Palm Bay, FL

Albertsons #4416

820 Palm Bay Road NE, Palm Bay, FL

Palm Bay Village

     Well, it might not look like much at first glance, but what you see in the above photo was former Albertsons #4416. This Albertsons opened in 1994 as a typical early 90's Albertsons, and was shuttered in August 2006 with five other Albertsons stores across Florida not long after Albertsons' Florida division was sold off to Cerberus. In 2008, the renovations you can see above were completed, and this former Albertsons was split between Office Depot and Aldi. However, the very far right side of the main Albertsons building and the Albertsons liquor store (in the far right of the above photo with the blue awning) were never touched when this building was split into Office Depot and Aldi, but we'll take a closer look at that area a little later. There's still some interesting things to be seen over there, but back to the main part of the store for now.

     Here's another view of the exterior before we head inside. This photo has a better view of the original section that remains from when this store was an Albertsons. Too bad all of those palm trees just have to get in the way of the exterior photos. Most Florida cities require trees and plants in parking lot islands as a way to beautify them, but all they do is make for a harder time to get photos of these places! Anyway, I guess we'll head into Office Depot first...

     This photo was taken right after walking through Office Depot's main entrance. There's not a single piece of Albertsons left in here. They really did a thorough gutting when Office Depot and Aldi moved in. As soon as I walked in here I knew I wouldn't find much. First of all, this store would have had a drop ceiling as Albertsons. Albertsons didn't start using a warehouse ceiling until the Plaza Model came out around 1998. Also, Albertsons would have had a tile floor. If you look closely at the concrete floor in these Office Depot photos, you can see the diamond shaped marks where Albertsons' floor tiles would have been before they were ripped out. In Albertsons days, this photo would be pointing down the grocery aisles toward the dairy department, which was along the back wall straight ahead.  

     Looking from the right side of the Office Depot to the left. Albertsons Pharmacy would have been to the left along that side wall, with Health and Beauty straight ahead of me, and the Meat & Seafood counter would have been off to the right in the back left corner of the building. The warehouse ceilings in here and over in Aldi seemed unusually high to me. I don't know if it was just me of if it was because the original drop ceiling was removed, so the original roof went higher than in stores built with warehouse ceilings. 

     One last look inside Office Depot before heading back out. 

     Now back outside heading toward Aldi, whose entrance is to my left in this photo. Albertsons main entrance and exit would have been approximately located behind where Aldi's carts currently are. Now let's go inside Aldi...

     As with Office Depot, not a whole lot of Albertsons to see in here either. Completely gutted and remodeled. I promise you though, things will get much more exciting here in a moment, so don't change web pages just yet! 

     Aldi takes up what would have been most of the Grocery Aisles in this building's Albertsons days. This photo looks in the direction toward where Albertsons main entrance and most of the cash registers would have been.

     Just one last shot from inside of Aldi before heading back out. Aldi doesn't quite take up the entire right half of the Albertsons building. Behind that wall to the left is still an abandoned piece of the Albertsons, where the bakery, deli, and produce departments would have been located. 

     Now walking back out of Aldi and toward the abandoned Albertsons liquor store, which is behind that first set of glass doors up on the left. What you see here is all original to the Albertsons. Behind that emergency exit door is that last abandoned piece of the main Albertsons store that Aldi never took over. 

     This is what that last remaining piece of the original store looks like from the exterior. The architecture and all of that blue trim still says Albertsons all over it.  Back to the liquor store...

     Looking back in the direction toward Aldi and the emergency door from the Albertsons liquor store.

     The entrance to the old Albertsons Liquor store, which has been abandoned since 2006. This is where this post starts to get really interesting. 

     Another view of the Liquor Store doors, which still has all of the original Albertsons decals and the original Albertsons store hours. But what's that I see through the window? (Hint: It's not the cinder block.)

     It's the Blue & Gray Market interior! (I told you this post was going to get much more exciting.) Well, it's a stripped out version of it anyway. There would have been blue lettering along the walls when this was still open, located in that white area between the two pink stripes. Also, that pattern in the floor tiles is a dead giveaway of the Blue & Gray Market interior. All the way in the far back would have a row of glass door coolers for beer, and you can see the marks on the floor where the aisles for the wine and liquor would have been. The far right wall would have been another set of coolers. 

     It's amazing how many times you see the main Albertsons store get re-purposed into all kinds of things, but the liquor store will still sit abandoned for years afterwords. The liquor store above is going on 8 years abandoned already, while the rest of the main store (well, most of the main store) has been reoccupied for 6 years already. Usually these liquor stores are our last glimpse into the Albertsons that once occupied these sites, like the one above.

     Before we head off into satellite imagery, I was able to find one historic photo of this store from when it was still an Albertsons:

Historic Photo courtesy of Loopnet.com 

     It's not the greatest photo in the world, but you can still make out the general look of the original building.

     And just a quick glimpse at the road sign. This is the main sign facing Palm Bay Road, and it's a modified Albertsons style road sign. 

Now for the Bird's Eye Aerial Images (Courtesy of Bing Maps):

Front - You can clearly see the dividing line between Aldi and Office Depot here.

Right Side

Back

Left Side

Historic Aerials (Courtesy of Google Earth):

Former Albertsons #4416 - 2014

Albertsons #4416 - 2005

Here's something pretty interesting, the store is still under construction here - Future Albertsons #4416 - 1994

       Just one last look at Former Albertsons #4416, and the accompanying shopping center before I finish. It's amazing how even in a store that looks to be renovated beyond recognition, there's still something from it's past life to be found. 

Well, I guess that finishes today's post. Until next time, 

The Albertsons Florida Blogger  

A Picture's Worth A Thousand Tiles - The Story of the Publix Murals

     When you bring up Florida retail with anyone, the first thing they'll mention is Publix. Publix has a long history here in Florida (not to mention a strong following) that dates back to their creation in Winter Haven in 1930 by George Jenkins, or as he was more commonly called by his associates, "Mr. George". Mr. George was a very innovative man, adding features to his stores such as air conditioning, florescent lighting, terrazzo floors, and automatic eye doors, all of which were unheard of concepts for a supermarket back in the 1940's when Publix started to expand throughout the state. However, one of the most unique ideas of Mr. George came along in the mid 1950's. He had the idea to commission a tile mural to be placed on the front of every one of his new stores. He hired local Winter Haven artist Pati Mills to hand paint nearly 200 tile murals for new Publix stores across the state for nearly 25 years. These murals were comprised of hundreds of 4x4 white tiles, each of which was hand glazed and fired. I think these murals are one of the most interesting parts of Florida retail history, which is why I decided to do an entire post about them. 

     In this post we're going to take a look at these classic murals on two Publix stores. The first mural that we're going to take a look at is located at Publix Store #215, which is located at 4711 Babcock Street NE in Palm Bay, FL, in the Palm Bay Center. 

     This store is a 70's Model Publix that was renovated sometime in the mid-90's, which is why the exterior looks different than a typical 70's Publix. This store has two murals, one to each side of the entryway.

     This mural is the one that's located to the right side of the entryway, and has a fruit and wine theme. This mural, along with the cornucopia (which we'll see below) were the two most common themes for these murals. While these murals sometimes shared common themes, no two were ever exactly the same. 

     I don't know much about tile glazing, but this looks like it took a long time to do! And this mural is a baby compared to the one on the other side of the store! There's a lot of detail if you look at these murals closely. I guess the doves flying over all of the food means 'A Plenitude of Food brings Peace'. Possibly anyway. I'm not very good at finding the deeper meaning in art. 

      Now off the the much larger cornucopia mural over to the left side of the entrance. This is the right half of the mural, with fruits and vegetables spilling out of the cornucopia, leading to more bottles of wine. According to one article I saw, the average dimensions of one of these murals was 7 feet high by 62 feet long. Using 4"x4" tiles, if I did my math correctly, that comes out to an average of 3,906 tiles in one mural alone! My seemingly exaggerated title for this post is actually an understatement! 

     Over to the left half of the mural, which is supposed to represent one of Florida's many orange groves, which most modern Florida cities were built on top of. However, most of this orange grove was chopped down when that fire door was put in, which I'm sure is not original to this store. This door had to be added when this store was remodeled and expanded in the mid-90's.  

     This was the best panoramic type shot I could get of the cornucopia mural considering its size.  

     Over to the very right of the cornucopia mural in the bottom corner was Pati Mills' signature. This photo also gives you a close up to where you can actually see the brush strokes.

     While must Publix stores had a mural similar to the one above, some stores had specialty murals to compliment the city or region that store was in. The next Publix mural we're going to look at has one of those specialty murals. This store is Publix Store #202, which is located at 3200 Lake Washington Road in Melbourne, FL, in the Lake Washington Crossings shopping center. 

     This is another older Publix store that's had a facade upgrade in recent years. This store was in the process of getting upgraded to the 3rd Generation Classy Market interior when I visited. This store only has one tile mural, which you can see to the far left in the above photo. 

     The mural for this store has a waterfront/harbor theme, which I assume was done because the city of Melbourne has dubbed themselves "The Harbor City". Above is the left half of this store's mural, which is more of a medium sized one. This half shows boats moored at a dock with old fashioned (somewhat European styled) buildings in the background.

     The right half of this specialty mural, which shows the 'Fisherman's Wharf' building on the left and the 'Shak's Seafood Restaurant' building on the right. 

     And here's a panoramic overview of the entire harbor mural. I couldn't find the signature on this mural, but maybe I just didn't see it.  

     On my retail excursions I'll be on the lookout for more of these murals. As I've mentioned before, Publix likes to keep their stores up to date, which means many stores that have had these murals have been abandoned or torn down as Publix builds new stores. These murals are practically impossible to preserve if the store is set for demolition. These tiles are stuck on the wall really good and they get brittle from being in the harsh sun for so many years (and removing brittle fragile tiles from a wall is not an easy chore if you want them all out in one piece). The only way to successfully preserve one of these murals would be to cut out the entire wall in one piece, which would be expensive and hard to transport. There's a really good article of a group in Temple Terrace, FL who fought to save their Publix mural when their old Publix store was set for demolition as a part of a downtown redevelopment plan. Unfortunately, those plans weren't successful, and in the end they had to settle on hiring a professional photographer to do a panoramic photograph the entire mural, and after the store was demolished, the tile fragments were collected to be used in stepping stones to be placed throughout the city. To read that article, click here.   

   

     As for the murals shown in this post, the one at the Lake Washington Crossings store still has some time left on it since, like I mentioned earlier, that store is currently getting an interior remodel (the mural should be left alone during this process). The Palm Bay Center store doesn't seem like it's going anywhere anytime soon, but with Publix, you never know. 

     Pati Mills' Publix Murals are still remembered as one of Publix's classic features from the past, and are still admired by shoppers to this day at some stores, leaving one of the most famous artistic legacies in all of retail history. I'm going to try my best to photograph her murals as I find them. It must be hard for an artist to see their work being destroyed, like when the murals are lost when these Publix stores are demolished. Pati Mills had to have put hours into hand glazing all of those tiles! Pati is still doing art to this day, including tile murals (but no longer for Publix).

     Also, I have more exterior and interior photos of the two Publix stores whose murals were shown above. Those photos should be coming to the Albertsons Florida Blog's Flickr Page in the near future. 

     For now, that's all I have. Come see us next Saturday for another tour of a former Albertsons!

See you then!

The Albertsons Florida Blogger

  

The All New Store Models & Interiors Tab Is Now Here! (And Other Announcements)

     For a while I've been mentioning that I'd be getting around to putting something together that would explain the Albertsons interiors. Well, here it is in the all new Store Models & Interiors tab! While it might not seem like much right since there aren't many pictures, I tried to include links to existing photos online so you could see what these interiors look like. I hope to get some of my own photos on there soon, along with some better photos to replace some of the grainy ones. Along with the Albertsons interiors, I've also decided to put explanations of Publix and Winn-Dixie store models and interiors there also as they'll be coming up here and on my flickr page pretty often. With the introduction of the new tab, the Albertsons Store Model directory has also been moved from the Useful Information tab to the new Store Models & Interiors tab. Be sure to check out all of the new information there!

     Also, there will be a special bonus post going up this Saturday, May 3rd, featuring one of  my favorite things from Florida retail history. The following Saturday, May 10th, there will be a post featuring a tour of another former Albertsons store. Hope to see you then!

Until Next Time,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger