Publix #38 - Pasadena Shopping Center - South Pasadena, FL

Publix #38 / Walmart Neighborhood Market #3161

6850 Gulfport Boulevard South, South Pasadena, FL - Pasadena Shopping Center

Today's post is a presentation of Pinellas County retail

     Another AFB and MFR double shot for everyone today! If you haven't seen it yet on AFB, we toured the Publixsons of South Pasadena, which opened in 2009 as a replacement for an older Publix store located across the street. Here on MFR, we'll take a look at what has become of the original South Pasadena Publix store, which dates back to the Wing Store era and remained in business for 50 years before upgrading to the larger Albertsons building. So get ready to learn more about Publix's time here in South Pasadena, our story beginning way back in 1959:

     Publix #38 opened for business on February 16, 1959, a few months before the entire shopping center celebrated its grand opening on October 1st of that year. Pasadena Shopping Center was one of the first shopping centers in this part of Pinellas County, and was notable for featuring Florida's second S.S. Kresge variety store, as well as Pinellas County's first Publix Danish Bakery (the Danish Bakery had only made its debut two years prior).

     I managed to come across this really neat aerial photo of the shopping center from its early days, and even though the newsprint image quality isn't the greatest, it's pretty easy to tell where the Publix was - those wings don't lie! S.S. Kresge a few doors to the right of the Publix, with Eckerd at the far left of the complex. Elsewhere in the complex was Morrison's Cafeteria, Fremac's Clothing Store, and an S&H Green Stamps Redemption Center (a super convenient location for one too, as Publix was a big Green Stamps distributor back in the day - you could collect your stamps at Publix and walk next door to redeem them for a fabulous gift from the catalog).

Note - the opening date for the Publix listed in this article was wrong, as another one I found from 1959 mentioned the store opened in February of that year, which matches the timeframe from when the rest of the shopping center opened too.

     During Publix's tenure at Pasadena Shopping Center, the store was remodeled a number of times, including an expansion out the left side of the building in 1989 to increase the sales floor space of the original Wing Store building. The 1989 expansion project coincided with a remodel and expansion of the shopping center itself, followed by another refresh to the plaza's facade in 2002 (which the article above was in reference to). To coincide with the 2002 refresh, Publix gave this store its final interior remodel at that time, changing out the interior to Wavy Pastel (one of the later remodels to that decor - the linked photo showing #38's bakery in 2007). Wavy Pastel was the decor this store kept until it closed in 2009.

Photo courtesy of waymarking.com

     The Publix only received minor exterior updates during the 2002 remodel, with the majority of the facade you see here a remainder of the 1989 expansion project. Being an expanded store, the reconfigured entryway was a bit strange, and almost looks like the entryway of an old Art Deco store with all the glass block that was used here.

Photo courtesy of waymarking.com

     Here's a slightly more pulled-back view showing the extent of the Publix space, along with its neighbor, the former Eckerd (now CVS, and CVS still operates in that same space today). According to the website I pulled these photos from, these photos appear to date to May 2008, only a month before the news broke that Publix was to buy 49 stores from Albertsons, including the Albertsons store across the street from here. Being almost 50 years old at the time, it made sense that Publix was looking to upgrade this store to something larger and more modern, and that old Albertsons was it. After some remodeling, Publix made the move across the street on September 17, 2009, with old #38 closing the night before on September 16th.

     From 2009 to 2013, the old Publix space sat vacant. During that time, businesses began to leave the Pasadena Shopping Center as the loss of the plaza's anchor was leading to a decrease in business, which in turn was making the city concerned that the shopping center would turn into an eyesore if nothing was done to bring a new anchor store to the complex. A local advocate (and later mayor of South Pasadena) named Dan Calabria personally reached out to Walmart to see if the company would be interested in the space for a new Neighborhood Market in 2010, and those conversations eventually grew into a commitment by Walmart to open a new store at Pasadena Shopping Center come 2013. On September 23, 2013, Walmart began a 17-week remodeling project to transform the old Publix into a new Walmart Neighborhood Market store, with the Neighborhood Market opening for business in January 2014. Walmart's new store managed to spring life back into the plaza, with multiple inquiries by businesses interested in the Pasadena Avenue corridor coming into the city after the announcement of Walmart's arrival.

     Walmart has coexisted with Publix and Winn-Dixie now since 2014, the three stores all managing to co-exist with each other on the same corner for the last decade. It's pretty rare to see 3 supermarkets on any street corner in Florida anymore, so having Florida's modern "Big 3" grocers all at this same intersection is quite the interesting sight in the 2020's!

     As you can see, Walmart did very little to the exterior of this building upon moving in. The building was repainted and new doors were installed, but otherwise Walmart left Publix's 1989 exterior mostly in-tact, as the majority of the changes happened inside the building. Leaving Publix's facade in-tact also gave us another bonus too:

     Yes, Publix's tile mural managed to survive the conversion! (Well, 80% of it did, at least).

     The tile mural is a slight variant of the typical Pati Mills "Horn of Plenty" design, with some baskets of fruit and bottles of wine depicted. I'd imagine this mural dates back to Pasadena Shopping Center's first facade remodel in the 1970's, as if a mural was installed during the 1989 remodel, it probably would have used one of Pati Mills' later local flare designs (as the horn of plenty murals were more of a 1970's/early 1980's theme). Sadly, the installation of that electrical device cost us the left-most portion of the mural, which appears to have been ripped out to install that device (however, I'm not sure if the installation of that thing was Walmart's or Publix's doing, as I've seen Publix themselves rip out portions of a mural during remodels to install relocated emergency exit doors).

     While the entry doors are Walmart's standard issue, the configuration of the doors, the glass blocks, and fancy overhead lights are left over from Publix.

     Stepping inside we find a cart storage vestibule, which is original to Publix (albeit heavily remodeled by Walmart). However, the original Publix interior remnants stop here, as when we head inside to the salesfloor...

     …we'll see that Walmart gutted the entire interior of the building to conform it to the typical early 2010's Project Impact-era plainness you'd expect from Walmart. While Walmart got better better with Neighborhood Market decor come the late 2010's with signage that at least tried to be a little more fun and inviting, the era of "Cheap Impact" was a low for Walmart in terms of design. It was also a low point for the Neighborhood Market stores as well, as Neighborhood Markets from that era were built without any service departments at all (except for a pharmacy), just like this one. Walmart designed this store to not only look cheap, but to be operated cheaply too, without all the extra operating costs that service departments bring. Much like the decor, Walmart did reverse course on the removal of service departments at Neighborhood Markets in the late 2010's as well, but brace yourselves, the store we're about to see today isn't very exciting (however, I think most of the people reading this post didn't have the highest of expectations upon seeing we'd be touring a Walmart!).

     Anyway, upon entering this store, the first department we come across is produce, located in the front right corner of the building. Since this was an expanded Publix store, the layout of it is a bit up in the air due to the unorthodox nature of those stores (and the fact I've never seen an interior photo of it besides that close-up of the bakery I linked to earlier). That photo showed the bakery had the original striped terrazzo, so that would seem to imply Publix's bakery was located on the right side of the building (which is the original Wing Store portion), and the orientation of the terrazzo stripes would also imply the bakery was on the right side wall. My guess is the right side wall was Publix's "grand aisle", with deli located in the front right corner, possibly where Walmart's produce department is now.

     Currently, the right side wall of this store is home to Walmart's lunch meats department, which occupies the first grocery aisle you see after leaving produce. The back right corner of the store is home to the "deli" department, which was nothing more than a warmer of rotisserie chickens (which must be made in the backroom somewhere, as this store lacks a full-service deli counter).

     From the "deli" department, here's a look across the store's back wall, where dairy is the next department we come across.

     When Publix was here, the back wall was most likely home to a combination of the dairy and meat departments, similar to what Walmart has here.

     Random grocery aisle shot, with this aisle looking quite neat for a Walmart. I should also note that Walmart replaced all the lighting in this store with those fluorescent strips, and covered all the old terrazzo with white tiles.

     Frozen foods are located in the center of the store, with these large support columns being the dividing line between Publix's original Wing Store space (to my left) and the 1989 expansion space (to my right).

     A local flare poster was located on the back of the freezers, which I thought was a nice touch.

     About three-quarters of the way through the store, the aisles switch from running perpendicular to the front wall to parallel. These aisles along the left side of the store comprise the small general merchandise selection these stores carry, with the photo above looking into the building's back left corner.

     Most of the "general merchandise" on this side of the store was stuff you'd find in most grocery stores, like paper products, cleaning supplies, pet products, health and beauty, etc. A small amount of hardware, automotive, and seasonal was located over here too, as well as some greeting cards and party supplies. What we see above is a look across the store's left side wall, looking from the back of the building toward the front.

     Here's the main actionway where the orientation of the aisles change, with this aisle home to most of the store's seasonal merchandise.

     I didn't get a picture of it, but the pharmacy was located in the front left corner of the building. If this photo was taken looking the other way, you would have been able to see the pharmacy counter.

     In terms of decor, there wasn't much to see here, being this store had Cheap Impact (which was very limited in signage, outside of a few flimsy plastic signs hanging here and there). Thankfully, this store was recently remodeled to Walmart's current decor package, Airport, which looks basically the same between the Neighborhood Markets and Supercenters. As part of the remodel, Walmart ripped out all the white floor tiles in here too, re-exposing Publix old striped terrazzo (which you can see at that linked photo). The expansion part of the store just had plain exposed concrete, meaning Publix probably had vinyl tile of their own in that part of the store when they were here too.

     If I had waited a few more years to visit this store, it could have made this post a little more interesting seeing the old terrazzo exposed and a slightly more visually interesting decor on the walls, but that's just how things work out sometimes. Even in its prior condition, we still got the gist of what this store is all about, and still saw some interesting Publix remnants, like the old mural, which makes an encore appearance in the photo above.

     Before we finish, here's a few additional photos of the Pasadena Shopping Center, this one looking at the center's CVS store, occupying the longtime Eckerd space to the left of the old Publix. CVS doesn't have many options for relocating to a freestanding store in this area with how limited space is around here now, so this in-line pharmacy persists to this day, even with a Walmart pharmacy operating just a few doors down from it.

     To the right of the old Publix is Bealls Outlet (or should I say now, Bealls), occupying the former S.S. Kresge space. Kmart opened a new store across the street from here next door to The Family Mart (later Kash n' Karry and Sweetbay, now Winn-Dixie) in 1981, so I don't know if the Kresge's store closed around then (with the Kmart replacing it) or if the two may have coexisted for a while (as Kresge's lasted until 1994, well after Kmart had become long established as the company's primary venture). Regardless, the South Pasadena Kmart lasted until the second bankruptcy closing wave the company released in 2003, with that building now housing Extra Space Storage.

     Anyway, that completes our quick look at the original South Pasadena Publix store, and if you've read both this post and the one about the South Pasadena Publixsons across the street on AFB, you're now all caught up on Publix's long history in this small town! While my MFR posting isn't as frequent as my posting on AFB, I'll try to find some more time to share another post on here soon enough, but otherwise, more AFB in two weeks!

So until the next post,

AFB