Whole Foods Market is coming to Valrico
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Sep 3, 2024

Whole Foods Market says it is planning another store in the Tampa Bay region, this time in Valrico.

A spokesperson for the Austin, Texas-based specialty grocer confirmed to the Tampa Bay Business Journal that a store in Valrico is "in development" but did not share a specific location. Plans filed with Hillsborough County on Aug. 26, stamped with Whole Foods' logo, show a 38,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market at Lithia Crossing, the shopping center where Fresh Market closed in July.

Kite Realty, which owns Lithia Crossing, has updated the shopping center's site plan on its website to show a 38,000-square-foot anchor coming soon. The former Fresh Market location is 22,383 square feet and will be combined with a portion of Stein Mart's former space. Stein Mart, which occupied 36,200 square feet, closed in 2020 when the Jacksonville-based department store chain shuttered all locations. Spirit Halloween, a seasonal retail tenant, is temporarily in the former Stein Mart space.

Indianapolis-based Kite Realty was previously a Whole Foods landlord in Tampa: The real estate investment trust owns Walters Crossing on North Dale Mabry — the shopping center that Whole Foods vacated to move to Midtown Tampa in 2021.

The location is an endorsement of Valrico's population growth. Whole Foods' real estate requirements say the grocer targets sites with 200,000 people within a 20-minute drive with "a large number of college-educated residents." Plans for the Valrico store come six years after specialty grocer Sprouts Farmers Market opened in Valrico.

The Valrico store will be Whole Foods' seventh location in the Tampa Bay region. It currently has two locations in Sarasota and stores in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Carrollwood.