Wesley Chapel residents eager for the long-rumored Aldi grocery store to open have been keeping their eyes on the S.R. 54 area near The Grove at Wesley Chapel shopping center, where rumors had the German-based chain planned.
Turns out, they were looking in the wrong place.
Instead, it now appears Aldi is headed for the Cypress Creek Town Center North development across the road from Tampa Premium Outlets on S.R. 56.
According to forms filed recently with Pasco County, Aldi is proposing to build a 19,054-sq.-ft. store on the north side of S.R. 56, off Wesley Chapel Blvd. in Lutz (though the forms list Wesley Chapel as its address). Aldi filed a Development Permit Pre-Submittal Meeting request form March 27, as well as a conceptual site plan.
A previously filed pre-app form listed the Northeast corner of Wesley Chapel Blvd. (S.R. 54) and Gateway Blvd. near The Groves as a proposed site for a 17,825-sq.-ft. Aldi store.
A trendy favorite of shoppers, Aldi is a no-frills discount supermarket chain based in Germany, with over 8,000 stores worldwide.
Aldi is able to offer items at cheap prices (and doesn’t accept coupons) because of low overhead. Not every aisle has shelves, as some items are simply stacked in their boxes, shoppers need to bring their own bag, shopping carts will cost you a quarter (which you get back when you return it, saving employees from having to track down carts in the parking lot) and the store sells random non-grocery items as well.
Aldi is aggressively expanding across the U.S., and is currently remodeling many of its stores to give them a more modern look.
Just a little east of the proposed Aldi site and also making its way through the county permitting pipeline is Darden Restaurant chain Bahama Breeze Island Grill, which had it’s pre-app meeting on Jan. 30 and is looking to build one of its popular restaurants in Cypress Creek Town Center North, at 25663 Sierra Center Blvd.
The new restaurant would be 7,987-sq.-ft. with an outdoor seating area and 168 parking spaces.
Bahama Breeze, whose nearest locations are in Brandon and between Tampa and Clearwater off the Courtney Campbell Causeway at Rocky Point, specializes in Caribbean-inspired food and tropical drinks.
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