ALDI Releases First Winn-Dixie Location Up For Conversion

Future ALDI #0579

Tiger Crossing Shopping Center

1617 South College Street

Auburn, AL 36832

Currently Winn-Dixie #579

Breaking News:  The German supermarket chain has submitted construction plans to convert Auburn's only Winn-Dixie into the town's first ALDI.

Hello, and welcome to My Florida Retail Blog, your source for coverage on retail news and history from across the Southeast.  Today's post may come as a surprise to many of you because I, too, was not expecting to be the one to first break this news.  Regardless, as of two days ago, I uncovered plans detailing the first Winn-Dixie store to convert to the ALDI discount format as part of the recently completed merger.

Courtesy ALDI - Front Elevation - March 2024

As you can see from these front elevation sketches, ALDI intends to subdivide the current 51,000 square foot supermarket space in two in order to conform to its standard roughly 25,000 sq ft footprint.  This altercation would involve permanently closing the current Winn-Dixie and subletting the left half of the building to a different entity following the construction.

In the photo above, ALDI is slated to occupy the portion of the building just to the right of the word "Pharmacy" and the primary façade will be situated where Winn-Dixie's wordmark currently sits.  ALDI will carve a new entrance where the bank of windows is to the left of the "Now Hiring" banner and add some additional windows to the empty wall to the right.

Courtesy ALDI - Demolition Plan (front of store on right) - March 2024

A demolition plan from the documents reveals where ALDI will remove everything to the right of Winn-Dixie's current freezer aisles and gut the entire back right corner of the store to make way for the new format. 

Courtesy ALDI - Proposed ALDI Floorplan (front of store on right) - March 2024

This leaves enough space for ALDI to install an entirely new back office and stock room configuration, new refrigeration, and new shelving units to conform to its typical limited 5 aisle setup.  Plans also call for the transformation of the current Winn-Dixie floral space into a cart storage vestibule.

While once being the closest supermarket for many students attending Auburn University and a co-anchor with the town's original Walmart, this WD was dealt a harmful blow when a nearby Kroger doubled its footprint in 2016; additionally, it was presumably put on life support when Publix opened a new small-format grocery store a block from campus in October 2022.  The town's other Winn-Dixie closed back in 2013, while Opelika's WD remains unchanged (for now).  It at least received a thorough remodel in 2022 which hopefully means it is less susceptible to a conversion.

 

For those of you who'd like to learn a bit more about this building's life as a Winn-Dixie, I encourage you to read on.  It won't offend me if you just want to scroll through the pictures, too!

As of several weeks ago, the pharmacy sign had been removed from the front of the building following Winn-Dixie's divestiture of its prescription clients to CVS & Walgreens in late-2023.  This move was performed in preparation for the (at the time) pending ALDI acquisition since the German grocer seemingly had no interest in running a full-service pharmacy.

This store uses a brick design language, which also featured variations for the upscale Food Pavilion format and is still commonly found across the former Montgomery Division.  WD has since consolidated all former Montgomery stores into its Hammond, LA, operations following a scale back of operations in the late-2010's.

Today's tour will consist of photos from three separate visits to this store:  two in Fall 2022 and one in May 2024.  The bulk of the pictures, however, are from the two earlier trips.

With this store being so close to Auburn University (it has a College Street address, after all), it features a number of local flare items including this worn "tiger eyes" mural on the front sidewalk.

The mural is foreshadowing what's to come on the inside of this store, considering how I walked out of my last visit thinking, "You know, this would be the perfect candidate for an ALDI conversion."  I suppose that's how things work out sometimes.

The dated door decals certainly don't help matters considering how a similar design has been used as far back as the early-1980's.

 

Stepping inside, we find the floral department where most other Winn-Dixie stores have a promotional area.  I presume this was moved here during the early-2000's remodel to allow for more space for the deli.

I'm not going to lie, I was a bit overwhelmed when I realized that I had close to 90 pictures of this store.  Thankfully, I was able to purge a few (just like how this WD had purged many of its flowers over the span of time between when these two pictures were taken).

I believe when this Winn-Dixie Marketplace opened on March 2, 1995, it would have originally looked like this former Winn-Dixie in LaGrange, GA, both in color palette and in layout.  The main difference being that this store was given a makeover at some point shortly before the Jacksonville-based grocer's 2005 bankruptcy.

 

That remodel introduced some interesting anomalies, including the fact that this space looks like a strange hybrid between a mid-1990's Marketplace WD and an early-2000's "small format" store.  The mint green floors really look out of place compared to blatantly recycled 90's wall décor.

Update (11/2/2024): It looks like this store completed its remodel in early-2007 along with #437 in Opelika, #443 on Macon Road in Columbus, and #480 on Milgen Road in Columbus.

This space was also shockingly devoid of fixtures.  Yes, there were still a few that were fully stocked, but there was a lot more noticeably empty floor space than I'm accustomed to.

As for the elephant in the room, the giant "WAR EAGLE" sign was built entirely out of empty Diet Dr. Pepper (white), Fanta (orange), and Sprite Zero (blue) boxes.  The only problem is that Sprite Zero was recast into a green color scheme in 2019 meaning that this display is at least 5 years old.  The boxes were quite faded.

Even the secondary signs were painted to match the new color scheme.  This place is really reminding me of the Pinson WD with all of the cream and teal.

Turning around, we find a small pumpkin patch between the produce department and the checkouts (I guess this was from an October trip).  Probably the most jarring piece of the remodel is the fact that the checkout soffit was painted red – quite the clash with the softer colors in the rest of the store. 

I guess that is a life-sized cardboard cutout of Bruce Pearl on top of the juice fridge?  Neat?

Just under Bruce is a small refrigerator with beer and wine – this was likely the old floral case before the department was moved to the front of the store.

Next up, we'll see the part of the store that has changed the most over the years:  the deli and bakery departments.  Originally, the deli would have been on the back wall facing us while the bakery was in the opposite corner of the store.  Luncheon meats were in cases lining the right wall and there was a small "Deli Café" seating area with a salad bar (scroll through my pictures of Ingles #249 for a better idea).

When the bakery and deli were shuffled around, the checkered floor was added, and the soffit was bumped out to extend toward the front of the store.

These department signs are noticeably two-dimensional in contrast to the 3D neon we'd grown used to from The Beef People.  Furthermore, notice how all of the fixtures in this corner are black compared to the ones in the rest of the store being white:  more evidence that they were added at a later date.

Is that a hastily-written portable dry erase board with the deli specials?  I think so.

At least the distracting floor helps break up the emptiness.

Turning the corner, we see the "Purple & Maroon" interior package's tri-sided aisle markers come into view.  These replaced the original dual-sided ones which survived another two decades in several other stores.

I appreciate how the designers added the ghosted W/D logos behind the aisle number, but the overall look of these signs did not age well.

They are also surprisingly short since they only feature at most three categories.  I suppose they don't need as much room since they only demarcate the front (or back) half of an aisle.  Why didn't they just install taller signs to highlight the entire length of the aisle?

Interestingly, Southeastern Grocers added a Dollar Shop section to this store which otherwise typically coincided with a full interior remodel.  I guess they made good use of the double wide aisles 3 & 4.

You know, I would try those SEG-branded peanuts found on the center cut-through aisle's endcap and I may love them, but there is a better chance that they would just send me into shock.  I'll just stick to the sipping the apple juice while I throw out my obligatory rant about how deplorable center cut-through aisles are.

Let's continue on to the meat department along the back wall of the store.

The deli and bakery didn't have neon lights, but the meat counter still did.  If that sign wasn't so large, it would make for a really cool man cave piece!

I wonder how many people end up buying a grill in Winn-Dixie's meat department (and how $89.99 compares to what one of these would go for at Walmart).

Unsurprisingly, the repainted signs and interesting flooring patterns continued back here.

Rather than opting to replace the rapidly aging interior as part of a full remodel, The Beef People instead decided to paint over the existing signs to give them a fresh appearance.

Winn-Dixie #168 - Chiefland, FL - 2021

I believe that the department signs in Auburn would have looked like this one from Chiefland, FL, based on the time frame of the former's construction.

Upon close inspection, we can see how the "Fresh Meats" lettering was hand painted, lacks the black outline found in other stores with prefabricated signs, and how the sign background has some "ghost" horizontal lines reflective of the old teal striped background (these were more visible in person).

Probably one of the biggest indicators to me that this store was not doing well was how nearly every package of chicken breasts had a sell by date of the following day and was marked half off.  I've seen Kroger stores hold a fire sale on one or two packages, but not their entire stock of "fresh" chicken!

I honestly wonder if the frozen meats were fresher!  

Just like I have seen at nearly every other store of this vintage, the "Frozen Meats" sign only had 2D hand-painted text compared to the 3D lettering used in similar departments.

Additionally, the WDE block letters are for a common Auburn rally cry often heard at sporting events – and I guess the Winn-Dixie frozen section.

Many parts of this store just felt rough around the edges, too.  The floors were a bit dingy, the shelves looked worn out, and there was a pallet jack just sitting in the middle of the international foods / freezer aisle.

At least these freezers appeared to be much newer than most of the ones I've seen in similarly-aged stores.

P&G's floor decal advocating "don't pay for water" probably isn't helping drive sales of the 3/$12 bottles at the end of the aisle!

    This store's Aisle 12 features some "Winning" paper products and hotel-quality bath towels.  Luxurious.

As you run to the bathroom you can take some time to peruse the bargain books or admire the tailgate-worthy folding chairs and umbrellas.

Alternatively, you can recite the Auburn Creed . . .

. . . or admire a faded photograph of Samford Hall.

 

Let's pop back out into the store to take a look at the dairy department and its corresponding signs.

Or at least the signs that once corresponded to the products below.  Last I checked, pepperoni and ham were not examples of dairy items.

 

Do you ever feel,

like a garbage bag,

sitting on the shelf

wanting to start again?

Before going to your tailgate, don't forget your Auburn branded Styrofoam coolers and a gallon of sweet tea for the kiddos!

In addition to the typical "Frozen Meats" sign, this store also had 2D "Luncheon Meats" and "Dairy Products" signs on the left wall of the store.  These, too, are results of the first (and only) remodel thanks to the product rearrangements which coincided.  I have a feeling that if we were to remove the piece of the sign that "Luncheon Meats" is painted on, we'd find the white "Dairy Products" script on a pink background.

The only problem is that The Beef People again decided to rearrange things without bothering to change the altered signage back to its original state.  They were so close to having the right things under the right signs over here!

Jumping forward two years (I can tell based on the Know & Love milk I see in the fridge), we also see that WD sold off most of the Styrofoam coolers it had been collecting over the years.

 

As for the other "Dairy Products" sign further down the aisle, I feel confident that it originally advertised the "Beverage Center" A.K.A. the beer cooler.  At least it is over cheese!

Contrary to the "Fresh Meats" sign, the other departments feature an updated Winn-Dixie "Chek" mark graphic over the old W/D logo.  I presume the one for the meat department simply fell and was never replaced.

 

The thing that is interesting about this remodel is that other than the department relocations, I can tell that the goal was to be as thrifty as possible without intentionally looking cheap.  The designers did a good job of working with a limited budget and recycling as much from the original store as they could while still giving the space a fresh look.  The thing is if you look closely, you start to find where they cut corners.

Or, shall I say, where they didn't cut corners.  Winn-Dixie made no effort to remove the old bakery soffit from the front left corner leaving behind a strange reminder of the old department.

Nowadays, a different kind of yeasty treat has taken up residence in this space.

I enjoyed the custom Winn Dixie Beer Cavern neon sign:  talk about another great man cave piece!  This section of the store is likely very popular in a college town like Auburn.

I guess Modelo and ready-to-drink Margaritas are "Baby Needs" now?  Those kids are having much more fun than I ever did...

    You can buy a single wireless earphone if you'd like to relive your mid-2000's Bluetooth headset days.

While waiting on your prescription or walk-in COVID-19 shot, you can grab a Body Puff loofah to take home with you.

I can "consult" the pharmacist here to ask which color loofah I should buy!

The space looked much more hospitable on my first visit because by 2024 . . .

 the sign had been taken down and the counter had been covered by shelves with dry goods.  At least Southeastern Grocers did a good job of matching the yellow paint!

Back up front, we find a balloon display over the checkouts that was presumably installed for Breast Cancer Awareness Month along with some merchandise for the lesser-known Auburn Tigers.

Notice how there haven't been many people in my photos?  That's because both times I came here (and apparently the time the Sing Oil Sidekick photographed the space for me) the store felt almost deserted.  While there were a few other shoppers perusing the aisles it was far from the number I'd expect based on the times of day. 

I could excuse my initial Friday afternoon trip since many college students were likely preparing for their weekend extracurricular activities, but I would expect the store to be packed on a Sunday afternoon.

Just a few weeks ago, I messaged The Albertsons Florida Blogger saying how,  "The store was nearly empty of customers on Sunday afternoon, the produce department had tons of open space due to a lack of fixtures, most of the chicken was on clearance since the sell-by date was today, and the overall place just felt tired. I would almost be shocked if the store didn't convert to ALDI, especially with the only ALDI in the area being all the way at Tiger Town."

It seems that my prediction, in fact, is coming true.  Is this a sign that I've been to too many supermarkets?

Regardless, I'm glad that I was able to photograph this store one last time without feeling rushed to make a special trip.

While not the best picture, I think I snapped this photo in attempt to show the letters spelling "TIGERS" mounted to the of the checkout lines.

My final thoughts from the day were, "my oh my did that place look pitiful. It still has Marketplace in full force and looks like it hasn't left 2001."

While I'm not typically a fan of cheering for a store's closure, I think this conversion will wind up being a net positive for the area.  There may be a few lost positions, but I'm hoping that the skeleton crew this WD was likely already operating with will all be able to transfer to the new ALDI, or at a minimum, the Opelika store.  In any regard, the sun is certainly setting on this location.

That will conclude my coverage of this store, but I wanted to include a short piece from the Sing Oil Sidekick regarding an unusual amenity for a Winn-Dixie parking lot.  Keep on reading to find out what that was.

Greetings Florida retail fans! This is the Sing Oil Sidekick here with some more interesting asides about electric vehicles.  Although I did tour the inside of WD, the main intent of my visit was to see some newly installed and (at the time) still un-commissioned Tesla Superchargers which opened for business on May 12, 2022.  The station includes 12 Gen 3 chargers each with a peak output of 250 kilowatts.  For context, your average home microwave pulls about 1 kW, so running a single charger at full speed is equal to microwaving 250 Hot Pockets at one time.  That's a lot of frozen outsides and lava-hot filling to burn the roof of your mouth with! 

The charger on the left is placed differently than the rest to make it handicap accessible; I am glad to see Tesla making modifications to their chargers to make them more accessible to all users.

Another new-at-the-time feature of this Supercharger was one pull-through charger (visible in the image above).  With the advent of Tesla's Model X SUV that could be used to tow, drivers wanted stations that they could pull into rather than having to unhitch trailers to back into the typical Supercharger space.  And now that the cheese grater on wheels – I mean Cybertruck – is rolling out (I recently saw one on I-85 between Auburn and Montgomery!) having a towing-ready pull-through charger will be even more valuable.

These transformer cabinets convert AC power from the grid into the high-voltage DC power used by the chargers.  With three transformers and twelve 250 kW chargers, each cabinet supplies almost 1 megawatt of power or the load of 750 homes! One little factoid that was true at least for older Superchargers (I am unsure if the rule still applies) is how the charging power is shared between charging points. In the images above, you can see that the chargers are labeled 1A, 1B, ... 2C, 2D, etc. The number refers to which transformer cabinet supplies that charger, with each transformer serving chargers A-D with the same number. If multiple cars are charging both from circuit 1, that would result in each car having a reduced power output and reduced charging speed because the transformer power is being shared between their cars. For this reason, it is considered good charging etiquette to choose an outlet on an unoccupied circuit if one is available rather than plugging into an outlet which is on a circuit already in use.

Here we can see some lengths of aluminum high voltage cable used to carry the huge amount of electricity used by this system. I did not want to pick up any of the cable for fear of someone thinking I was there to steal it for scrap metal, but if I remember correctly these cables were probably 0.5" to 0.75" in diameter, much more substantial than your average 120V extension cord! I was very happy to catch sight of one detail only visible during the initial construction phase of a Supercharger.

This location is actually the second Supercharger in Auburn.  A station was opened at the Auburn Mall on December 12, 2014, which was very early on in the network's history.  The station has 6 Gen 2 chargers each with a peak output of 150 kW.  I still can't fathom why that location was chosen because it is quite far away from Interstate 85, and it seems like the Tiger Town shopping mall would have been a much more logical location.  Regardless, the South College St. site solves this issue.  As a validation point for the convenience of South College St., there is also an Electrify America station (a charging network funded as part of the Volkswagen Dieselgate settlement) just a few doors down at Walmart which (until 2024) was the best fast-charging option for non-Tesla drivers headed down I-85.  Additionally, the Buc-ee's located one exit south on I-85 is rumored to be receiving some Mercedes-Benz branded fast chargers as part of a partnership between the two brands.

Before I close, I want to cover some recent news on the Supercharger front.  In 2023, Ford shocked the EV world when it announced a deal to open the Supercharger network to Ford EVs beginning in 2024.  In addition, Ford announced that from 2025 they would switch the charging port on their vehicles from the Combined Charging Standard (CCS) to the North American Charging Standard (NACS, also known as Tesla-style) charger.  GM shortly followed, and by the end of 2023 every major automaker had announced that they were adopting the NACS standard and Supercharger network.   This was seen as a huge win for Tesla because they could profit handsomely on selling the power from these chargers.  In contrast to other fast-charging networks, like Electrify America and Chargepoint, Tesla's chargers are easier to use and much more reliable.  With the huge expansion in vehicles eligible to use Superchargers, the EV community expected an accelerated expansion of the network.  On top of growing demand for charging, the standardization to NACS also gained Superchargers eligibility for federal grants to cover construction costs.  However, in the first half of 2024 there has been a slowdown in EV sales, and as a result many EV companies have been doing layoffs, including Tesla.  I was shocked to hear news that the layoffs impacted almost the entire Supercharger division, and that under-construction projects immediately came to a standstill.  Construction companies could not even get in touch with Tesla about the status of their chargers which were actively being built.  I have to say that I am quite disappointed by this move on Tesla's part, because I think the continued growth of the network is essential with the upcoming tidal wave of new cars which will be charging at these stations.  There have been many articles and debates about Elon Musk's motivations and decision making process regarding these changes, but I will not cover that here!

I hope you don't need to call the invisible number for assistance, or you will end up like the construction contractors who couldn't reach Tesla for payment after the layoffs! "Doo-doo-doo...We're sorry, the number you are trying to reach has been disconnected..."

To wrap up this (not very) short tangent, I think this Supercharger location is very helpful to travelers on the I-85 corridor (much more than the Auburn Mall location) and will be getting lots of traffic as more automakers gain access to the network.  I hope that Tesla will realize the value of continuing to invest in this network as a profitable income stream and work to rebuild the Supercharger team so this rollout can continue.  After all, a more widespread, reliable, and robust charging network is one of the main factors holding back the EV market at the moment.  Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk (lol), and until next time, the Sing Oil Sidekick is signing off! 

That will also wrap up this week's post, but make sure to check back (sometime) for the next installment of The Sing Oil Blog on MFR.

Until then,

- The Sing Oil Blogger