Status Update: Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market
MANATEE -- The start of a grocery store showdown expected at the intersection of Lockwood Ridge Road and State Road 70 may be only a month away.
As of March 10, Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart will have a newly completed Walmart Neighborhood Market ready to open at 4536 53rd Ave. E. The store is at the same intersection where a Publix grocery store is already operating and where a new Aldi store is expected to open later this year.
The project's general contractor, Case Contracting Co. of Plant City, confirmed the completion date. An opening date for the store has not been made public. Walmart officials did not respond immediately to a request to provide that information.
Construction of the Neighborhood Market started in August. Its location is a portion of a site once occupied by a Winn-Dixie supermarket. Several other retail structures are being built on both sides of the Walmart store, including a WaWa convenience store
and a car wash.
According to a site plan on file with Manatee County, shoppers will be able to access the store from both Lockwood Ridge Road and 53rd Avenue East.
The company's Neighborhood Market brand is a line of grocery stores that are much smaller than Wal-Mart's Supercenter concept stores.
At more than 43,000 square feet, the new 53rd Avenue East store will be about 25 percent the size an average Supercenter.
Neighborhood Markets are not new to Florida. As of last November, Walmart had opened 74 of the stores in the state, according to its website.
The company operates 698 Neighborhood Market stores nationwide.
The nearest Neighborhood Market to the new location is at 3500 N. Tamiami Trail in Sarasota County.
Walmart also operates a Supercenter at 2911 53rd Ave. E., less than 2 miles away.
Status Update, a new weekly feature, is a regular look at the progress of construction projects throughout Manatee County.
This story was originally published February 12, 2016 at 11:47 PM with the headline "Status Update: Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market ."