Save-A-Lot grocery store will move into the vacant anchor spot at Zephyrhills Plaza on State Road 54.
Sunshine Partners Development Corp., has filed a conceptual plan to redevelop the plaza, county records show. Save-A-Lot, and potential additional retail tenants, could give the plaza a new start.
The approximately 52,000-square-foot discount grocery store will replace the former Sweetbay grocery store that closed in 2014.
The closure was part of an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission following the purchase by Bi-Lo Holdings of more than 150 Sweetbay, Harveys and Reid grocery stores from the Delhaize Group. The intent was to operate the stores under the Winn-Dixie brand.
But to encourage local competition, the federal agency ordered Bi-Lo to close more than a dozen stores in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. They were considered too close to stores already under Bi-Lo control. Two of those stores were in Zephyrhills and Dade City.
A tentative opening for Save-A-Lot is scheduled for late October with remodeling likely to begin in midsummer, said Save-A-Lot spokeswoman Chon Tomlin.
Save-A-Lot operates more than 100 stores in Florida, and more than 1,300 nationwide. Bill Moran founded the company when he opened his first grocery store in Illinois in 1977.
“We have a really solid footprint in Florida,” Tomlin said. “Our model is well-established in the state.”
Store officials look for established neighborhoods with a customer base that want to have a grocery store close to home, Tomlin said.
“It’s really about being a community grocery store,” she added.
Published June 3, 2015
