New Tampa’s first Aldi store will hold it’s eagerly-anticipated Grand Opening on Thursday, July 29.
The store, located at the corner of Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. and Highwoods Preserve Pkwy. at the site of the former Ruby Tuesday restaurant, will be 19,160 square feet with 106 parking spaces.
“Our new Tampa, Florida, store is on track to open Thursday, July 29,” Matt Thon, the Haines City, FL, division vice president for ALDI, told us in an email. “We look forward to serving Tampa residents and providing them with the best grocery shopping experience and will reach out with more information closer to the Grand Opening.”
As part of the construction of Aldi (18002 Highwoods Preserve Pkwy.), a new sidewalk has also been built on Highwoods Preserve Pkwy., to aid pedestrians who are shopping, as well as those using the bus stop at the same corner.
Aldi is a popular German discount grocer that carries brands that many shoppers here in the U.S. may not recognize, including their own. More than 90 percent of the brands Aldi carries are exclusive brands. Aldi is investing more than $5 billion to remodel more than 1,000 existing stores, while opening roughly 120 new stores in 2021.
While no specific Grand Opening details have been announced, typically the stores will hand out things like free eco-friendly bags, samples and prizes, like gift cards. Store hours are 9 a.m.-8 p.m.
The likelihood of a transformation at the old Sweetbay isn’t the only new thing coming to New Tampa.
In fact, The Walk at Highwoods Preserve area located right across the street Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. from the former Sweetbay may be a busy corner in the coming new year.
The busy area already has added three new restaurants — Oronzo Honest Italian (see story on pages 26-27), Michi Ramen and Gu Wei — and an F45 Fitness center this year. It also has seen big box electronics giant Best Buy and home furnishings chain Pier 1 Imports close up shop, potentially giving way to future new tenants.
And, additional Highwoods Preserve Pkwy. businesses — the former Starbucks and Jimmy John’s sub shop — are being prepped for new tenants.
And yes, construction has finally begun on the new Aldi grocery store on the southwest corner of Highwoods Preserve Pkwy. and BBD.
On Nov. 23, crews began tearing down the old Ruby Tuesday restaurant. By Thanksgiving, the 2.36-acre lot, purchased by Leon Capital Group in 2018 for $2.82 million, was mainly home to a mangled mess of metal and concrete.
The Aldi was approved back in January. It will be 19,160 square feet — almost four times the size of Ruby Tuesday — with 106 parking spaces.
Developers of the popular German discount chain also are adding a sidewalk for pedestrians and those who use the bus stop at the same corner.
There is still no word about when, or if, the once-planned $5-million renovation of the AMC Theater at Highwoods Preserve is happening.
Unfortunately, the movie industry has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. In October, AMC warned investors that it could run out of cash by the end of the year. Around the same time, Regal Cinemas shut down all its theaters.
FOR WHOM THE (TACO)BELL TOLLS: Well, it’s official — according to City of Tampa permitting records, the Circle K at the corner of Doña Michelle Dr. and BBD is expanding, and that expansion will eliminate the Taco Bell and Shell-branded gas station currently attached to it.
Circle K Stores, Inc., which had a pre-application consultation in August looking to redevelop the existing Shell gas station to become a larger Circle K gas station, is going ahead with those plans.
A site plan submitted Nov. 24 shows the current convenience store expanding to a 5,187-sq.-ft. store.
The Taco Bell is being replaced in by five parking spots and a sitting area, as well as a second proposed entrance/ exit behind the convenience store. The canopy over the gas pumps also will bear the Circle K logo.
The AMC Theater, which had to postpone a major renovation project after being been hit hard by Covid-19, and the former Ruby Tuesday restaurant, which will be replaced by Aldi, also are on the east side on BBD.
The unsightly former Ruby Tuesday property will get a trim before construction begins on a new Aldi supermarket at the same location.
As he is wont to do (see AMC Theater, the old Sweetbay store, etc.), Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera met with code enforcement officials last week in an attempt to have the area around the closed Ruby Tuesday restaurant cleaned up.
Now owned by Aldi, which has yet to begin construction on its store on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd., Viera requested that someone come take care of the overgrown foliage around the former restaurant.
Viera got some good news — not only have Aldi officials said they will come clean the area up — which they did — they also confirmed that construction is set to begin construction on the New Tampa location soon. The German supermarket chain recently opened a location in Wesley Chapel in front of the Costco on S.R. 56.
(TACO) SHELL GAME: The Shell station on Doña Michelle Dr. could soon be a Circle K gas station, according to paperwork filed with the City of Tampa.
If those plans go forward, it could mean the end of the popular Taco Bell located adjacent to the current Circle K. According to information presented at a pre-application consultation last month, Circle K Stores Inc. is looking to redevelop the existing Shell gas station to become a larger Circle K gas station, and according to the preliminary concept, that would involve transforming the current convenience store to a 5,187-sq.-ft. store.
The Taco Bell would be replaced in Circle K’s plans by five parking spots and a sitting area, as well as a second proposed entrance/exit behind the convenience store.
Pre-application consultations are very conceptual and very vague, however. Here’s hoping this doesn’t mean the end of late-night taco and burrito runs.
LEGAL WEED: The Mattress1 One store in the Shoppes of New Tampa plaza in front of the New Tampa Home Depot (not to be confused with the Shoppes at New Tampa in Wesley Chapel; see below) has closed, and plans have been filed to transform the former store into a VidaCann medical cannabis dispensary.
According to county records, the location, which is across BBD from Panera Bread and next door to MIT Computers, will undergo a $90,000 renovation.
It will be New Tampa’s first dispensary, and the second Tampa location for VidaCann, joining a location on W. Kennedy Blvd. that opened in 2018. For more information, visit VidaCann.com.
THE BEALLS TOLLS: The Bealls store (above) in the Shoppes at New Tampa plaza on BBD in Wesley Chapel is being replaced and will become a Ross Labels For Less store.
Bealls’ parent company Stage Stores, Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on May 11. Ross is the largest off-price retailer in the U.S. It is a popular place to pick up name brand items at affordable prices, hence the tagline “Dress for Less.”
The $250,000 Bealls demolition job began on July 1.
MORE WESLEY CHAPEL: The new Ross could have a new neighbor soon — Keke’s Breakfast Cafe, a popular Florida-only chain of about 50 restaurants throughout the state; the nearest locations are in Lutz, Temple Terrace and Carrollwood. The signs on the former real estate office tease that the breakfast joint is “coming soon,” although we are hearing that Keke’s is on hold at the moment, also likely due to Covid-19.
• Miller’s Ale House, which will be a new link in a popular Orlando-based franchised chain of sports-themed bar/restaurants, is officially under construction now in the Cypress Creek Town Center on the southwest corner of S.R. 54 and the Wesley Chapel Blvd. extension, across the street from the new Aldi grocery store.
• The Morgan Auto Group is beginning construction on its new 130,000-sq.-ft., seven-story (which will make it the tallest building in Wesley Chapel) BMW of Wesley Chapel, on S.R. 56, adjacent to the existing Mini of Wesley Chapel dealership (also owned by Morgan Auto Group), just east of I-75.
• Right across S.R. 56 from BMW (on Silver Maple Pkwy.), the long-awaited (plans were first filed in 2014) Volkswagen of Wesley Chapel dealership is much further along, as the building is now standing and the construction is continuing.
The Volkswagen dealership will feature a 21,796-sq.-ft. first floor, a 5,990-sq.-ft. second floor and a 2,604-sq.-ft. car wash.
Here at the Neighborhood News, we get an inordinate number of phone calls asking “Is this Aldi?” and “Are you open yet?”
We’re not sure why, other than Google must be taking many a curious reader to our website, where at least a handful of stories about the Germany-based discount-grocer reside.
Finally, however, we can give the next caller an answer: Wednesday, July 1.
So, why the question mark in the leadline?
In our next issue, which will be hitting your mailboxes any day now, we say the Aldi, located at 2215 Sun Vista Dr. (on the southeast corner of S.R. 56 and Wesley Chapel Blvd.) is opening June 17 because that’s what the Aldi website had posted the day we sent the issue to the printers. Oops!
Official plans for the Grand Opening should be coming soon.
ALDI says it has nearly 2,000 stores across 36 states, and is on track to become the third-largest grocery retailer by store count by the end of 2022. It carries mostly lesser known brands, and many products can be had at deep discounts compared with other stores.
The Aldi store has been a long time coming for the Wesley Chapel area. The company first approached Pasco County planners about a site near The Grove on S.R. 54 back in 2015. Those plans were scrapped for a different location on the north side of S.R. 56, before being altered again for its current location on the south side of 56, in front of Costco.
The petition to re-zone the property of the former Ruby Tuesday restaurant on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. was unanimously approved earlier today by the Tampa City Council on the second reading.
The city’s Development Review & Compliance staff had already found the petition, which requests to be reclassified from a PD-A (Planned Development, Alternative restaurant) to PD (Planned Development, retail sales, shopper’s goods), to be consistent with applicable City of Tampa land regulations.
The proposed Aldi store, which will be located at the corner of BBD and Highwoods Preserve Pkwy. in front of the AMC movie theater, will be 19,160 square feet — almost four times the size of Ruby Tuesday — with 106 parking spaces.
Leon Capital Group, the owners who purchased the 2.36-acre lot for $2.82 million in 2018, were represented at the first reading on Jan. 16 by Scott Stannard of Commercial Site Solutions.
Stannard said the plans include not only replacing the vacant restaurant, but enhancing the surrounding area.
“We feel it’s an improvement, actually,” Stannard told the council members. “We’ve had arborists go out and we’re going to be taking down some of the dead trees and replacing them with new landscaping and beefing that up. It will be a nice fit for what’s out there.”
Stannard also said as that, as part of the new development, a sidewalk will be built on Highwood Preserve Pkwy., to aid pedestrians who are shopping, as well as those using the bus stop at the same corner.
“It’s really surprising there’s not one there already,” Stannard said.
Aldi, a German discount grocer, will be the third supermarket to open along a less-than-one-mile stretch of the west side of BBD. It would join a Publix at the corner of BBD and New Tampa Blvd. and Sprouts Farmers Market, which will be open by this summer in the new Village at Hunter’s Lake development across from the entrance to the Hunter’s Green community.
While Publix is the largest of the three and Sprouts is a “green” grocer, Aldi is a hugely popular German discount chain that carries brands that many shoppers here in the U.S. may not recognize, including their own. More than 90 percent of the brands Aldi carries are exclusive brands.
One unique aspect of Aldi is the quarter charge to rent a shopping cart at the store, to prevent stray carts from being left in the parking lot where they can dent cars.
Users get their quarter back when they return the cart.
Another Aldi is just weeks away from opening on S.R. 56 in Wesley Chapel, right in front of the Costco.
