Publix #239
10155 West Oakland Park Boulevard, Sunrise, FL - Welleby Plaza
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Directly across the street from former Albertsons #4375, we find a small neighborhood shopping center called Welleby Plaza. Named after the housing development located behind it, Welleby Plaza is home to Publix #239, a Publix store that has served this part of Sunrise for over 40 years. While I was visiting the Albertsons store across the street, I had to pop over here and take a look at this (for Publix's standards) very old store, as the older these Publix stores tend to be, the stranger they sometimes are. I like visiting Publix's older stores too, as they have a certain unique charm the modern cookie cutter stores lack, especially stores like #239 which have been remodeled and expanded through the years to create a very non-standard Publix. While a non-standard Publix may not have such strange decor (or notoriety) like a non-standard McDonald's might, there are still plenty of oddities to see here for the Floridian supermarket fan! So let's jump into my latest installment of MFR and see what Publix #239 is all about:
The city of Sunrise saw a lot of growth as part of the development boom in western Broward County in the early 1980's. One of those new developments envisioned at the time was that of Welleby, which was to be developed as new centrally located housing and retail hub surrounding the city's government complex. Welleby Plaza was developed as the new community's first shopping center, with anchors being a 36,000 square foot Publix store and a 13,000 square foot Walgreens pharmacy and liquor store.
Publix opened its Welleby Plaza store on September 23, 1982, the new store featuring a full-service deli, a large meat department, a Danish Bakery, and computerized scanning systems at checkout. You can click on the grand opening advertisement above to see the full-size image, where you can read more about all the new features of the Welleby Plaza Publix.
At the bottom of the grand opening ad was this sketch of the new Welleby Plaza store, featuring an upscale variant to the Spanish mission-influenced facade that was used by Publix occasionally in the early 1980's. Sadly, a lot of the mission-style architecture was removed from this store when it was expanded in the early 1990's, the expansion project resulting in the reconfiguration of the entryway and reconstruction of the facade into the somewhat plain look we see here today. However, in addition to this sketch, a commentor also found some photos of the shopping center from the 1990's, which you can see here showcasing the Publix with the original facade seen above.
Outside of the entryway the remainder of the facade retains its original architecture from when the store was built in 1982, although the rest of the building didn't have as much flare to it as the original entryway did.
The reconfigured entryway this store received was loosely based on the design of the early 1990's new-build stores, just lacking the inner vestibule and the second set of doors upon walking in like the new-build stores have. Originally this store would have had the concave style entryway most Publix stores from the early 1980's had, which looked like this. However, we'll return to the entryway in just a moment, as I spy something to the left of the doors that's catching my attention:
Sorry ma'am, I'm just admiring the art! Unfortunately, a large group of folks from one of the nearby senior citizens complexes was waiting for their bus to come pick them up in the area around the mural, leaving me to wait until they were all gone to get a better picture than this one. You can actually see the bus picking these folks up in the exterior photo following the newspaper clippings, which arrived just as I was leaving.
With everyone gone now, here's a better look at the mural. This mural is the only one at this store, and features a variation of the common cornucopia/wine/farm scene Pati Mills painted in the earlier days of her tile-painting tenure for Publix. This particular mural is different with its lighter color design and extra white space, the mural more commonly painted in the style seen here.
Now that we've had our dose of art appreciation for this post, let's head toward the front doors and see what the interior of this store is all about:
Stepping inside, a bunch of carts were crammed into the small space available between the two doors, a somewhat cramped place for all these carts, but there really wasn't anywhere else to put them besides outside on the front sidewalk.
The entryway opens right up into the salesfloor, funneling shoppers into the store behind the check lanes. The way the store is designed, shoppers are brought around the check lanes toward the service desk and the right side of the store. When this store was expanded, the service desk was never moved from its original spot on the right side wall, and the right side wall was left mostly unchanged as well. Also to note there is a set of restrooms next to the service desk, which is the usual location of those in an early 1980's Publix store. However, when this store expanded, a second set of restrooms was installed in the addition, which we'll see later, making this store one of very few Publix stores with two sets of public restrooms.
Aisle 1 is home to dairy, which lines the right side wall and wraps around the corner toward the meat and seafood department. In this aisle we can also see the classic Publix striped terrazzo, which is still visible throughout the original portion of the sales floor.
Rounding the corner out of aisle 1 we see the seafood counter. Originally, the deli would have been in the back right corner of the building when this store was first built, however that department was relocated to the expansion with most of the store's other fresh departments. Following the relocation of the deli, its prior space on the back wall was converted into space for a larger seafood service counter and meat department.
The seafood department's sign was placed on an angle, even though the counter itself faces forward to the back aisle. The wall space over the counter is painted plain brown, without any other kind of adornments. It's a rather strange signage placement (especially when you consider how good Publix usually is with putting signs in spots that make sense), but the sign is visible to everyone entering the back aisle from aisle 1, so Publix was probably hoping people would be shopping this store in the intended progression from right to left.
Leaving the back wall, we'll cut down aisle 2 before taking a quick look at the front end.
Between the service desk and the check lanes was a small area for promotional merchandise, with the weekly BOGO bins just out of frame to my left. I also like how these 1980's Publix stores had a lot of windows along the front end as well, which make the store feel much brighter inside.
For being an older Publix store, this location actually had 10 check lanes total, which is a lot (as most stores of this age and size only have 6-7 check lanes). The front aisle was also quite spacious too, and oddly quiet at the time I happened to take this photo!
Continuing along, the ceiling over the grocery aisles raises up as we move further into the sales floor, the higher ceiling encapsulating most of the grocery aisles in the original portion of the building.
Following the seafood service counter, the next thing we find along the back wall are the meat coolers, with the meat signage above.
It's times like this when I truly appreciate the wide aisles some stores have, like the super oversized Publix stores in the old Jewel-Osco buildings, so I can easily pass the people standing in the aisle contemplating the 50 different kinds of spaghetti sauce without getting a dirty look because I got too close!
The terrazzo stripes change direction halfway through the original salesfloor, creating the distinctive V-shape visible above.
Originally located in the last two aisles of the store, the frozen foods aisles are now in the center of the salesfloor in aisles 6 and 7. You can tell the coolers weren't located here originally, with the way the power and tubing lines are awkwardly run up through the ceiling in those large columns.
The previous photo of the frozen foods aisle had us looking down aisle 6, with the photo above looking up aisle 7 toward the front end.
Following frozen foods we find wine and the beer coolers in aisle 8, with everyone's fermented favorites located in one convenient place.
Aisle 10 extends out from in front of the pharmacy counter, so this aisle become home to health and beauty products.
Aisle 11 is the dividing line between the original sales floor and the 1990's addition, with the photo above looking from aisle 11 across the back wall of the original space. Produce used to be located in the area where I was standing prior to the addition, with the original seafood counter to my left.
The awkwardly placed columns in the middle of aisle 11 designate the transition between old and new. From aisle 11 to the left side of the store, we also see the flooring transitions from terrazzo to white tiles, the common floor treatment in the expansion side of older Publix stores.
Moving over to aisle 12, we're now fully in the addition space. The addition this store received in the early 1990's added roughly another 9,000 square feet to the store, taking it from its original 36,000 square feet to 45,000 square feet. Only two full grocery aisles exist in the addition space - numbers 12 and 13, with an additional aisle 14 that isn't a true aisle, but an additional sign put in place for the aisle that ran in front of the service counters.
Peeking out of aisle 12, here's a look at the store's second set of restrooms. Since most Publix stores only have one set of public restrooms, I'm surprised Publix sprang for a second set here during the addition, as I don't recall any other expanded Publix stores I've been to having two sets of restrooms like this one.
To the right of the second set of restrooms is the deli counter, located in the front left corner of the building, the exact opposite spot in the building from where it was located originally.
The hot foods and the Pub Sub counter are located along the front wall, with the sliced cold cuts around the corner in the counter along the left wall.
Next to the deli is the bakery, which relocated to the addition from its former home approximately where the store's pharmacy counter is now. I've seen a few other expanded 1980's Publix stores that got similar additions to what we see here, with all the service departments moving to the left side of the store to create a new "grand aisle".
The bakery is of typical Publix design, and looks quite nice with its Classy Market 3.0/Sienna decor.
Following the bakery is Floral, which actually has a decent amount of floor space in this store (the area along the wall plus all those displays in the middle of the aisle). I guess this store must sell a lot of flowers!
Leaving the grand aisle we enter produce, which was located in the back left corner of the building. Produce was always located in the back left corner, with the department shifting over into the addition following its completion, and the produce space in the original part of the building being absorbed into the grocery aisles.
Another interesting thing about this store is that for an older location, it actually got a fairly deluxe remodel to Classy Market 3.0/Sienna. While many of these older stores get a repaint to the new colors, the actual CM 3.0/Sienna department signs are usually just pasted to the wall, like this, in a fairly cheap manner. Here the department signs were actually mounted like in a new-build Publix with this decor, with the letters mounted to a base that extends out from the wall.
It felt like this store had a rather large produce department, as it felt quite spacious and larger than the produce department in other non-expanded stores of this age. The wide produce aisle certainly helped make this part of the store feel larger than normal, as sometimes the produce displays in older Publix stores can feel pretty close together.
Leaving produce, we'll work our way back to the front by cutting through the grand aisle once again. For a different perspective, here's a look at the grand aisle, as seen from the back of the building, looking toward the front.
What we're standing in here is what Publix officially considers aisle 14, which outside of the greeting cards, is just the service departments and their respective displays of product in the middle of the aisle.
Look, there isn't a line at the Pub Sub counter in this photo - now there's a rarity! However, the cold cuts seem to be drawing a few people, but I'm sure before long the lunch rush would be waiting to attack the deli with a vengeance!
Rounding the corner from the grand aisle, we find ourselves by the pharmacy again.
While it would have made sense to install the pharmacy during the early 1990's expansion, that doesn't appear to be the case here, as this store's pharmacy license wasn't issued until 1998 per state records. The pharmacy must have been added in a later remodel/refresh.
Also, am I the only one who finds it strange that someone merchandised a display of wine immediately next to the pharmacy counter?! I guess with the CBD sign next to that, this must be the alternative medicine department.
The pharmacy also looks like it was heavily remodeled during this store's Classy Market 3.0/Sienna remodel too based on its design, and I'm surprised Publix put so much money into this store at the time. It appears the CM 3.0/Sienna remodel happened around 2017-ish, as this 2016 photo appears to show the deli with Classy Market 2.0, and other photos show CM 3.0/Sienna in place by 2018.
I really lucked out getting such good, people-free photos of this store's front end, as this store was pretty busy while I was here! We'll wrap up our interior coverage with this final photo looking across the spacious front end before heading back outside for a few final photos:
Back outside, here's a look across the front walkway, in the direction the plaza's former Walgreens space. Today the former Walgreens is home to one of the most popular tenants for a former Walgreens store - either in-line or free-standing - Dollar Tree.
Dollar Tree left the overall Walgreens look and entryway design in-place after moving in, although from my quick peek inside, the interior of the store was rebuilt, removing any obvious Walgreens relics inside.
For fun, I stumbled across this ad featuring many of the tenants occupying Welleby Plaza in early 1983, just a few months after the plaza was built. All of these stores were located in the wing of the plaza that extends off the side of the former Walgreens, which I didn't get any photos of, but that side of the plaza wasn't anything too notable.
With one last look at the front of the building, that completes our tour of Publix #239. While this place has been here for over 40 years now, it looks much nicer than some other 40 year old stores out there! Hopefully everyone enjoyed our look at this older Publix store, and as always, be sure to keep an eye on MFR for any new posts from myself or any of the other contributors, and be sure to check out my post on AFB about the former Albertsons across the street if you haven't seen it yet.
So that's all I have for today. Until the next post,
AFB
