Aldi signage on the way up in Fort Caroline

The city issued the discount grocer a permit for a sign at the former Winn-Dixie in the Trading Post shopping center.


The Winn-Dixie at 6060 Fort Caroline Road, Unit 10, in Arlington is planned to be converted into an Aldi.
The Winn-Dixie at 6060 Fort Caroline Road, Unit 10, in Arlington is planned to be converted into an Aldi.
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Aldi Inc. can post its name on the Winn-Dixie supermarket in Arlington that it is converting into its smaller discount grocery format.

The city issued a permit April 23 for Southeastern Lighting Solutions to put up the wall sign at 6060 Fort Caroline Road, Unit 10, at a project cost of $3,200.

The permit comes seven weeks after the city issued a permit March 4 for T.D. Farrell Construction Inc. of Alpharetta, Georgia, to renovate the store at a project cost of $1.451 million. 

The shopping center is the Fort Caroline Trading Post east of University Boulevard.

German grocer Aldi bought Jacksonville-based Southeastern Grocers Inc., with about 400 Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarkets in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, as of March 7, 2024.

Less than a year later, a private investment group led by former Southeastern Grocers CEO and President Anthony Hucker announced Feb. 7, 2025, that it bought 170 of those stores as well as  the Winn-Dixie liquor store business.

Aldi intends to complete its previously stated conversion plans with a total of about 220 Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarket stores, which is expected to conclude in 2027. 

The February news release said Southeastern Grocers will continue to operate the remaining stores identified for conversion to Aldi until they are closed for the renovations.

Aldi, with U.S. headquarters in Batavia, Illinois, intends to retrofit the Fort Caroline Road Winn-Dixie into an Aldi, which requires “a significant downsizing of the unit” with the addition of an interior wall.

Aldi will renovate 21,985 square feet of the 47,188-square-foot Winn-Dixie space.

Aldi needs less space than traditional markets because of its streamlined layout and the fact it does not offer services such as pharmacies; bakeries; meat, deli and seafood counter service; floral services; or money orders, for example.

Plans show Aldi will lease 22,919 square feet of the 47,188-square-foot space that Winn-Dixie uses. 

That leaves space available to the landlord to re-lease.

Winn-Dixie anchors the roughly 80,000-square-foot shopping center that includes Planet Fitness and Citi Trends. It was built in 1984.

Aldi is converting at least six Winn-Dixie and Harveys locations, comprising four in Duval County and one each in Clay and St. Johns counties.

It has at least 14 open area stores, including the first conversion, a former Harveys Supermarket that opened March 20 in Edgewood Square in Northwest Jacksonville.

 

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