NSB Publix closes Saturday to be rebuilt
NEW SMYRNA BEACH — Loyal New Smyrna Beach Publix fans have only three more days left to shop at their decades-old State Road 44 store before it closes to prepare for a massive $20 million renovation.
Signs posted outside the building have been letting customers know there is limited time left, since on Saturday at 7 p.m., the managers will lock the doors.
Publix Super Markets Inc. plans to knock out several smaller stores on the New Smyrna Beach Regional Shopping Center’s eastern end to gain more space for a 54,244-square-foot grocery store and a separate, but attached, 1,400-square-foot liquor store.
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Publix at 1930 State Road, New Smyrna Beach, is closing to make way for a new store. Photo by Jim TillerImage 2 of 4
Publix at 1930 State Road, New Smyrna Beach, is closing to make way for a new store. Photo by Jim TillerImage 3 of 4
Publix at 1930 State Road, New Smyrna Beach, is closing to make way for a new store. Photo by Jim TillerImage 4 of 4
FILE-In this Sunday, May 19, 2013 file photo, a vehicle passes the front of the Publix supermarket in Zephyrhills, Fla. Publix Supermarkets is joining a growing number of retailers in asking customers not to openly carry firearms in its stores, even if state laws allow it. The company announced the move by email in a one-sentence statement on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2019, saying "Publix respectfully requests that only law enforcement officials openly carry firearms in our stores." (AP Photo/Scott Iskowitz, File) NY107 Photo by Scott IskowitzThree smaller stores, which were in the path of the proposed expansion — a Subway sandwich shop, Sally Beauty Supply and Joy Luck Garden Chinese restaurant — will be torn down to make room for the larger, more spacious redesign across from the Harley-Davidson dealership on the busy highway.
The Lakeland-based company, which gained permission last year to cut down several large oaks in the parking lot that project engineers said were in no shape to keep, also plans to reconfigure the lot of the 20-acre site with interspersed islands and shade trees.
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“It’s going to be a pretty significant expansion,” New Smyrna Beach city spokesman Phillip Veski said in a phone interview Wednesday.
Veski said by email that he thought it was exciting Publix chose to continue investing in the city.
“Aside from increasing floor space by more than 28 percent over the old store, the proposed site plan includes reconfiguring and resurfacing the parking lot, installing interior lot landscaping, updating perimeter landscaping along State Road 44, and improving utilities infrastructure,” Veski wrote. “It should be a thorough refresh, inside and out, and I know our residents and visitors will be pleased when the ribbon is finally cut!”
Neither a Publix spokesperson nor Dwight DuRant, president of Zev Cohen & Associates and engineer on the project, was immediately available for comment Wednesday, leaving the timeline unclear for reopening.
The move by the popular State Road 44 grocer comes on the heels of a new Aldi grocery store that opened in 2016, along a highway that also features Wal-Mart, Winn-Dixie and other competitors. Further west, near Interstate 95, developer Geosam plans to build a large shopping center.
Publix been aggressively expanding over the past two years.
Publix Super Markets in 2016 sold $34 billion in groceries and other products — a 5.1 percent increase from 2015. Between late June and the end of July, the grocer opened four more stores in Virginia, Alabama and North Carolina and has plans to open two more in Florida, in Palm Beach County and St. Augustine, according to the corporate website.