Close a Store Once, Shame on Winn-Dixie; Close a Store Twice, Shame on Aldi

Photo courtesy of Google Streetview

Winn-Dixie #288 / Winn-Dixie #213 / Future Aldi #213

5060 Seminole Pratt Whitney Road, Westlake, FL - Grove Marketplace

Today's post is a presentation of Palm Beach County retail

     A new year is upon us, and that means another year of Winn-Dixie to Aldi conversions to cover (sadly). As we enter 2025, we're inching ever so close to 100 total conversions across the chain as Winn-Dixie enters its centennial year, a pivotal year that could possibly give us answers about the chain's future (and if there will even be one too). While a number of the stores Aldi has chosen for conversion have been painful to see close (like the company's Tampa flagship), the store we'll be touring today (which actually closes the same day this post goes live - 1/12/2025) is up there on the list of painful closures as well - one of the top 3 on that list (so far) if I had to rank them. Not only was this store barely 3 years old when it closed (which is a sad fact in its own right), this will mark the second time this store has closed as a Winn-Dixie too. While the second closure of this store probably stings a bit more than the first one, we'll take some time to talk about both incarnations of Winn-Dixie at this site and how the company's grand plans for western Palm Beach County were foiled not once, but twice:

    May 20, 1999 was a big day for Winn-Dixie in Palm Beach County. On that day, the company had planned to open 3 new Marketplace stores simultaneously across the county - two in West Palm Beach (Palm Coast Plaza and Cross County Plaza - both replacements for older stores nearby), with the third store being a completely brand new location in the western part of the county in Loxahatchee (although the portion of then-unincorporated Loxahatchee in which the store was built is now part of the City of Westlake).

     Upon its opening in May 1999, the new Loxahatchee Winn-Dixie was the first supermarket to serve that semi-rural portion of the county, located in close proximity to a large development known as The Acreage. The goal of this new Winn-Dixie was to save residents in the area a trip into neighboring Royal Palm Beach for groceries, a good 8-mile drive to the east. In the late 1990's, western Palm Beach County was experiencing a development boom, particularly in Royal Palm Beach and Wellington, with some of that growth spilling over in the neighboring rural communities of Loxahatchee and The Acreage where this store was built. As we'll see in a moment, Winn-Dixie built this store banking on the population of the area exploding in the coming years, as for much of this store's original run, the placement of Winn-Dixie #288 was certainly odd.

Photo courtesy of a really old real estate listing

     Winn-Dixie #288 was a pretty average late 1990's "Food Pavilion" store, with all 3 of the stores Winn-Dixie opened on that day in May 1999 being copies of each other (minus some exterior modifications, like #288's alternate signage placement compared to Palm Coast Plaza's more standard signage seen in the news clipping a few photos back). Overall, Winn-Dixie #288 and its accompanying shopping center, Grove Marketplace, adopted a light "Old Florida" architectural style, hailing from its construction in the middle of an orange grove. That's not a figure of speech either - this store really was built right in the middle of an orange grove:

     I had to include this aerial image of what surrounded Winn-Dixie #288 for its entire 11 years in operation, as seeing a modern shopping center in the middle of a field with nothing around it but orange trees always intrigued me. The Winn-Dixie shopping center site was sold off from the surrounding Callery-Judge Groves, who controlled this undeveloped swatch of 3,800 acres in the middle of The Acreage. The owners of the groves seemed to be moving in the direction of selling out entirely to a developer as we entered the 2000's and the land increased in value (hence selling part of the land for the new Winn-Dixie), however, the Great Recession happened and those plans ended up being put on hold.

The store pictured above is the Palm Coast Plaza Winn-Dixie in West Palm Beach - #288 was never updated to the late 2000's logo like that.

     With Winn-Dixie's financial woes of the mid-2000's hindering the company's growth and the Great Recession of the late 2000's slowing further development in The Acreage, store #288 was in a precarious position. While initially surviving the closure waves of Winn-Dixie's 2005 bankruptcy (probably due to the company's thoughts of this area blossoming in new growth in the coming years), the lack of further development in the area come the late 2000's was probably the final straw for this store. In 2010, this store was included in a closure wave that took out an additional 30 Winn-Dixie stores throughout the Southeast, including 8 other stores in Palm Beach County alone. Those stores all closed by September 2010, at which time this store was left to sit empty.

     Other than serving as an unregulated parking area for students at the high school down the street, this building would spend the next 12 years waiting for something to happen with the land around it, something to attract a new anchor to this isolated strip. As the building lulls of the recession began to wane in the mid-2010's, developer Minto Homes purchased the 3,800 acres of citrus grove around this shopping center for $51 million in 2016, incorporating the land as the new City of Westlake later that same year. Shortly after the incorporation of Florida's newest city (a title Westlake still holds in 2025), development of new businesses and homes around this shopping center began, bringing back hope that something would eventually happen with this old Winn-Dixie shell as thousands of new homes began to sprout around it.

     I paid a visit to Westlake in 2020, when the former Winn-Dixie was still vacant and when Westlake was still looking a bit sparse retail-wise (something that's changed quite a bit in the last few years since my visit, as the developer continues to work toward the originally planned 2,000,000 square feet of commercial space in town). I took a quick look around the old store, although with the windows covered with hurricane shutters, all I was able to get was a quick tour of the exterior. Still, it's a nice general overview of what this store looked like for its first 11 years as a Winn-Dixie - a pretty standard Food Pavilion build.

     While we can't see inside, I'm about 99.9% sure this store retained its original Marketplace decor for its entire 11 years in business. While there may have been some of Winn-Dixie's interim early 2000's modifications happening inside as the Food Pavilion's vast offerings were discontinued through the years, I'm sure the walls retained that classic Marketplace decor that is practically ingrained in most people's minds when they think of Winn-Dixie.

     These last few photos were taken along the store's front walkway, looking toward the sealed-tight entrance along the silent front corridor. While a few of the small businesses in this strip were still occupied well after Winn-Dixie's first closure, the plaza just felt quiet all around.

     While Winn-Dixie's Marketplace stores were mostly cookie-cutter architecturally, the extra accents on this building like the lattice and metal awnings made this building seem classier than a more stereotypical version of this design.

     Winn-Dixie's entrance sign also remained in-tact following this store's first closure. Overall, that sign gets forgotten quite a bit in conversions of old Winn-Dixie stores, and I've seen that Entrance sign still hanging around at Winn-Dixies that closed back in the 1990's! However, that sign wasn't lucky enough to survive into Winn-Dixie v2, but that was probably for the best during a time when the company was trying to associate shoppers with its modernized look.

      Knowing that construction in Westlake was about to balloon following my visit, I was glad I visited this store when I did, as I knew something would end up moving in here before too long. Would it be a new Sprouts? A new TJMaxx/HomeGoods combo? Would Publix come and knock the place down for a new store, wanting to be first grocer in the new development? There were a lot of things I was thinking could happen here back in mid-2020, and Winn-Dixie making a grand return was quite low on that list at the time.

     In June 2021, the (somewhat surprising) news of Winn-Dixie's return to the Grove Marketplace was announced, following the company's submission of a new site plan to the city for a totally overhauled store. Right on the heels of its successful conversion of 8 former Lucky's Market and Earth Fare stores, Winn-Dixie was starting to launch its first new store push in nearly 2 decades, a stunning turn of events for the chain that mostly shrunk since the early 2000's. As part of this plan, Winn-Dixie had stated that "new store openings are forecast at about 10 per year starting in 2022", a year of openings with which the new Westlake store would launch.

Photo courtesy of Winn-Dixie

     Opening on March 2, 2022, the new Westlake Winn-Dixie would end up being one of only 2 completely new stores the company opened that year - not quite the vision of  "about 10 new stores" announced the year prior, but an impressive feat for the company nonetheless with additional new stores in the pipeline for 2023 as well. In addition to the Westlake store, its other new-for-2022 counterpart, the Grand Cypress Winn-Dixie in St. Johns, would mark the chain's first new ground-up built location in nearly 2 decades. In addition to those totally new stores, Winn-Dixie opened 17 new liquor stores in 2022 and remodeled 51 existing stores per the yearly recap press release. If you read that press release, you really get a sense that 2022 was an exciting year for Winn-Dixie - heck, I was excited for Winn-Dixie in 2022 as well! I thought the company was on the heels of one of the greatest comeback stories in supermarket history after seeing all that happened for Winn-Dixie that year. It's too bad that come 2023, the first bits of the company's suicide mission would start to leak when a certain announcement was made that August.

    Before we get back to the sad reality, I just wanted to take a moment to showcase just how much had changed around this store between when it first closed in 2010 and when it reopened in 2022. As you can see in the most recent satellite image above, that barren citrus grove is now a bustling town of 7,600 residents, not counting folks in the growing areas of The Acreage and Loxahatchee surrounding it. Directly across the street from the Winn-Dixie plaza is Westlake's new Publix store, which opened in June 2023. Probably for the first time since the 1980's, Winn-Dixie actually beat Publix with being the first supermarket to open in a new Floridian mega-development, by over a year too (and not even counting the original store's run). With new Floridian developments, usually it's a random Publix in the middle of a field waiting for the residents to arrive, not a Winn-Dixie! Winn-Dixie seemed to be in a great position here in Westlake, however, the company's German raiders thought this was a great location in a new development too, and wanted it all for themselves (even though there's ample room all over the place in Westlake for a newbuild Aldi).

Photo courtesy of Winn-Dixie

     Like its other new-for-2022 counterpart in Grand Cypress, the Westlake Winn-Dixie will be unceremoniously cut apart and chopped up for a new Aldi after barely 3 years in business - talk about a total waste! Situations like what we're seeing here in Westlake (and also in Grand Cypress) make me wonder why Winn-Dixie even tried doing anything to turn themselves around these last few years at all. Why dump millions into new stores just for Aldi to close them and put a store of their own there? However, I've given that rant before so I'll spare everyone now, but you can certainly tell I'm not a fan of this whole situation! (And from what I've seen elsewhere online, more people seem to be angry about losing their Winn-Dixies for an Aldi than the opposite case, so I'm justified here!)

Photo courtesy of blu 230 on Google Maps

     Unfortunately, I wasn't able to pay a visit to the new Winn-Dixie #213 before it closed, so the final portion of this post will involve me cheating a bit and recycling some photos that were posted to Google Maps of the new store. Much to my amazement, the people of Google, combined with the photos Winn-Dixie themselves posted to Facebook from this store's grand opening, create a comprehensive tour of this store that looks like a photoshoot of my own. Typically Google Maps photos are a mish-mash of random shots that almost never completely capture a store (and are sometimes taken at weird angles), so everything worked out here in my absence at least!

Photo courtesy of Winn-Dixie

     While I didn't make it to this store specifically, I have been to two other near-identical copies of what we're about to see here today. While those other two stores had a few minor differences, they all followed the same vision Winn-Dixie had for what a store of the 2020's would look like. We begin by entering the store and turning to the right for a look at the produce department, looking quite pristine in this grand opening day shot.

Photo courtesy of Winn-Dixie

     Winn-Dixie wishes us a warm hello, while Aldi waves us a cold good-bye in Westlake.

Photo courtesy of Winn-Dixie

     Following produce on the right side wall is the deli, along with its prepared foods counterpart The Kitchen.

Photo courtesy of Robert H on Google Maps

     The Kitchen at this store included a hot food and salad bar, in addition to the usual offerings of pre-made sandwiches and chicken wings at the counter.

Photo courtesy of Robert H on Google Maps

     Here's the thwing - this store is now closing, so you now have to go across the street to Publix for chicken wing dinner special as the only wings Aldi sells are raw!

Photo courtesy of Robert H on Google Maps

     For being a repurposed building, you'd be hard-pressed to believe this was once a 1990's Winn-Dixie Marketplace we're standing in. The concrete floors weren't scarred at all, and the entire building was stripped to the bare walls and rebuilt to match the new prototype exactly. Nothing about this store's layout is a carryover from the Marketplace days.

Photo courtesy of Robert H on Google Maps

     From near the back, here's an overview of the store's grand aisle. While I said earlier this tour was mostly comprehensive, it looks like the one department the people of Google let me down on photographing was the bakery. Anyway, it wasn't a tragic loss, as the bakery is located next to the deli at the end of the right wall, and looks mostly identical to the deli in design.

Photo courtesy of Robert H on Google Maps

     Beyond the bakery, at the end of the grand aisle is the beer & wine department, presented in a little alcove of its own in the back right corner of the salesfloor.

Photo courtesy of Hollie R on Google Maps

     Beer and wine occupies the first portion of the back wall, after which we transition to meats:

Photo courtesy of Robert H on Google Maps

     Turning around, here's a look at the butcher service counter, with the meat coolers just beyond. The Beef People, get ready to meat Die Rindfleischleute!

Photo courtesy of blu 230 on Google Maps

     Moving further along the back wall, here's another look at the meat department, as seen from the left side of the store this time.

Photo courtesy of blu 230 on Google Maps - that user must be an Aisle 12 fan

     Like many of the other stores Winn-Dixie has reopened throughout the years, I'd have to imagine Winn-Dixie was holding onto this building's lease the entire time the store was closed. Seeing the new development finally gaining traction in the area, I don't blame Winn-Dixie for reopening this store and trying to one-up Publix in this new development. The new store turned out really nice, and it's a shame it wasn't allowed to be given the chance it deserved.

Photo courtesy of Hollie R on Google Maps

     As we near the left side of the store, the heavy duty meats like steak and chicken shift to their more portable and easy to snack on Lunch Meat counterparts. Following that, entering the back left corner of the store we encounter dairy, although more specifically, the milk coolers (which got their own sign too).

Photo courtesy of Robert H on Google Maps

     The last two aisles of this store (numbers 14 and 15) are home to frozen foods, with the remainder of the dairy department on the left wall in aisle 15 as well.

Photo courtesy of Robert H on Google Maps

     Aisle 15 once again, just turned to look toward the front of the store instead of the back.

Photo courtesy of Winn-Dixie

     One of the most interesting parts about the new Westlake Winn-Dixie was that it was the only one of Winn-Dixie's new stores from the 2020-2023 timeframe to include a pharmacy. Ever since Winn-Dixie's mass purge of pharmacies in 2016, it seemed like running a full pharmacy counter was a bit of an afterthought for the company. Seeing almost all of the recent new stores open without a pharmacy seemed to reinforce that, although the existing pharmacies must have been holding their own to a degree, as some received elaborate updates in the stores that remodeled to Winn Win (like new consultation areas). Given the current economic conditions surrounding pharmacies and insurance regulations, as well as seeing other supermarket chains scale back on or totally get out of pharmacies all together in recent years (like Schnucks and ShopRite), I wonder if Winn-Dixie would have continued to hold out on operating pharmacies had Aldi not come into the picture, or if they all would have closed anyway (or been sold to CVS or Walgreens for a Target-like pharmacy situation). Winn-Dixie only had 200-ish pharmacies left when they were all closed in late 2023, which isn't quite the scale the big pharmacy chains (or Publix) have to offset the insurance losses plaguing pharmacies these days, so it would have been interesting to see what could have been.

Photo courtesy of Robert H on Google Maps

     We'll wrap up our interior tour of this store with some photos of the store's center aisle. While we'll get some nice views across the store here, you can also enjoy the symmetry these angles provide.

Photo courtesy of Robert H on Google Maps

     At least the people who designed this store managed to get the dairy sign to line up perfectly with the center aisle, even if the sign for The Kitchen was off by just a bit.

Photo courtesy of Robert H on Google Maps

      Say what you will about concrete floors, but at least these are shiny and free of any Kroger-esque scarring!

Photo courtesy of Miss IDGAF on Google Maps - coincidentally, her screen name also reflects Aldi's attitude toward Winn-Dixie too

     This final exterior photo of the store from grand opening day will complete our tour of this ill-fated Winn-Dixie, a dream crushed by corporate greed. And speaking of corporate greed, let's take a quick look at what the future of this building holds:

Photo courtesy of the Westlake Wanderer

     A modern 2020's Winn-Dixie store doesn't make for a bad looking Aldi, at least, although I'd have much rather seen this store stay a Winn-Dixie. While the Aldi sign wasn't included in the drawing above, Aldi's entrance will line up with Winn-Dixie's old entryway. The Winn-Dixie liquor store in Westlake will also close with the store it appears, as it's tucked into the left corner and would block the space behind it from any new tenant that would want that slice of the building. While the facade elevation doesn't look too out of the ordinary from what we've seen lately, this store's subdivision is actually a bit different than most of the others:

Photo courtesy of the Westlake Wanderer

     Instead of taking either the left or right half of the building, Aldi is taking the center of it, leaving an odd corridor in the back to access the loading dock on the left side of the building. The subdivision of this building seems fairly reminiscent of what we saw Aldi do at the old Brandon Albertsons we toured on AFB recently, with two empty wedges on either side of the Aldi - one slightly larger than the other. I guess if it's any consolation, at least Westlake now has that Publix across the street to fill the full-service gap left behind by Winn-Dixie, but Publix also has another store 2.5 miles north of here too, so it still becomes one less option and less competition altogether. The next closest Winn-Dixie to Westlake is the 1980's-era Royal Palm Beach store, which is 8 miles east of here, with two additional Publix stores you'd potentially drive by on the way to that Winn-Dixie too. As you can see, Aldi buying Winn-Dixie hasn't helped the grocery situation in Florida at all, just reducing competition by shrinking Winn-Dixie even more. Anyway, the year is young, and we'll have to see what the coming months deal out for Winn-Dixie's fate in its 100th year. Even in the chain's current situation, I'd like to see some acknowledgement of the occasion at least, as long as it's not a celebratory going out of business sale. Your Southeastern Retail Bloggers will be sure to keep you updated on the latest news out of Winn-Dixie as the year progresses, and I know I have plenty more to share on conversions as well as other fun Winn-Dixie stores to showcase in the year ahead too. As always, MFR will continue to be your one-stop shop for the latest on store conversion news with our comprehensive list (which you can see here), as well as our all new 2024 AL-Dixie recap. I'll be popping in with new MFR content of my own on occasion too, but if you're looking for new content sooner rather than later, posting on AFB resumes next Sunday as well, so be sure to come back for that too!

So until the next post,

AFB