Long-dark St. Pete Walmart sold to retail developer
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer and Breanne Williams
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Jan 30, 2024

A long-vacant St. Petersburg Walmart has been sold to one of Tampa Bay's most active retail developers.

St. Pete-based Sembler, which specializes in shopping center development, paid $6.7 million for the Walmart box at 3993 Tyrone Blvd. on Jan. 25, according to Pinellas County property records. Walmart had owned the store, which is 115,900 square feet, since it opened in 1990, property records show.

The sale appears to be a cash transaction as a mortgage has not been filed.

Sembler also owns the adjacent Lighthouse Crossings shopping center, which it developed 35 years ago, CEO Greg Sembler told the Tampa Bay Business Journal on Tuesday. Sembler said there are no immediate development plans, and his firm is looking at the Walmart parcel and Lighthouse Crossings Center as one combined property. The two properties total 20 acres.

PetSmart, the anchor of Lighthouse Crossings, will close in February, Sembler said.

"We’d like to do something with the whole piece, and we’re looking at all our options," Sembler said. "We have a very long-term view of the property."

Walmart Inc. closed the store in July 2014 to open a new location just 2 miles away but held onto the real estate for nearly a decade. Such a move isn't uncommon in the grocery industry, where grocers will often continue to pay rent or taxes on a dark box to ensure a competitor can't enter the space.

There has long been speculation that the Walmart property would be redeveloped into a multifamily complex. Sembler is a retail developer, but with 20 acres to work with, it could potentially partner with a multifamily developer to bring a mixed-use project to the site.

Another possibility for the site: a Publix Super Markets Inc. store. Sembler counts Lakeland-based Publix as an anchor tenant at its properties throughout Florida and the Southeast, and Publix is one of the most active grocers expanding in the Tampa Bay region. A Publix representative on Tuesday told the Tampa Bay Business Journal that it has no commitments to that property.