The city is reviewing a permit application for the estimated $4 million renovation of the former Staples at southwest Beach and University boulevards into a Gordon Food Service grocery store and delivery service.
The permit comes as the city issued a permit Nov. 21 for Ticon Inc. to remove the interior finishes from the store at 5800 Beach Blvd. at a project cost of $792,000.
The space for the Gordon Food Service Store is shown as about 29,000 square feet.
Fishbeck Engineers Architects Scientists Constructors of Grand Rapids, Michigan, is the consultant. The construction contract is out to bid, plans show.
The building is in the Boulevard Corners Shopping Center, which is owned by 116 W Flagler Street LLC of Miami.
The move returns groceries to the corner, where Albertsons operated decades ago in another part of the shopping center.
The store will be the first in Northeast Florida for Gordon Food Service.
No membership fee is required to shop at Gordon Food Service, which operates similarly to wholesale clubs.
“Gordon Food Service Store carries thousands of the most popular Gordon Food Service products at wholesale prices. The stores are open to the public seven days a week and do not require a membership fee,” says the GFSstore.com site.
Restaurants, health care facilities, universities, camps and other food-service operations may qualify to receive truck deliveries based on their product order size.
On Oct. 11, Colliers Senior Vice President Gary Montour said Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Gordon Food Service probably will open in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Montour represented the Boulevard Corners landlord in the lease. He said Atlantic Retail of Miami represented Gordon Food Service in the deal.
Gordon Food Service has 14 distribution centers, including in Miami and Plant City, to serve restaurants, health care, schools and other customers that serve groups of customers.
The ScrapeHero.com data site says Gordon Food Service has 196 stores in 163 cities in 17 states, including 21 in Florida. The closest to Jacksonville is in Daytona Beach.
A decade ago, plans showed that Gordon Food Service intended to open an almost 16,000-square-foot GFS Marketplace at 13423 Beach Blvd. The store wasn’t built and the developer sold the property to AD Development LLC of Jacksonville Beach for a strip retail center.
The GFSstore.com site says that privately owned Gordon Food Service, in operation for more than 125 years, serves the Midwest, Northeast, Southeast and Southwest regions of the United States and coast-to-coast in Canada.
It says it operates more than 175 Gordon Food Service Store locations in the U.S.