Publix-anchored shopping center coming to Hills of Minneola

The Cincinnati-based developer that just completed the $100 million Grand National mixed-use project on International Drive is putting down stakes in the Lake County’s Hills of Minneola master-planned community.

North American Properties has filed construction plans for a 16-acre Publix-anchored shopping center on Hancock Road near the Florida’s Turnpike interchange. The site falls within the mixed-use pod of the community at the future extension of Citrus Grove Road.

The Minneola City Council approved the commercial subdivision preliminary plat in October for the shopping plaza, and Poulos & Bennett submitted the construction plans last week to the St. Johns River Water Management District on behalf of NAP and Sun Terra Communities, master developer for the Hills of Minneola.

The plans call for a 48,387-square-foot grocery store and 7,000 square feet of attached inline retail, a 4,000-square-foot QSR with drive thru, a 11,700-square-foot multi-tenant retail building on Hancock Road and two outparcels for future development. The preliminary plat also outlines a 4.79-acre commercial lot immediately behind the Publix, which will be a future development phase.

Sun Terra paid $70.8 million in 2018 for the roughly 1,200-acre Hills of Minneola Planned Unit Development. Included in the purchase was 3,177 of the original 3,971 residential entitlements, plus 890,000 square feet of retail/commercial, 850,000 square feet of office, 1.4 million square feet of industrial/research park, and a future K-8 school site.

The Hills of Minneola master plan calls for a 79-acre town center parcel next to the Pubilx project. Development plans for that site include a mix of retail, restaurants and offices with an apartment site and a townhouse site.

NAP paid $16.8 million in 2016 for the 16.5 acres on north I-Drive, which is bookended by a Longhorn Steaks and Bahama Breeze restaurant. Also completed in 2018 was a Starbucks and U.S. Gift Factory. NAP sold a 2.3-acre lot within the project to 3H Group, a Tennessee hotelier that’s currently building a 148-room Marriott TownePlace Suites. The project is also entitled for a second hotel, an apartment complex, and 60,000 square feet of retail.

NAP also recently completed a Publix-anchored shopping center in Fort Myers. NAP serves as its own general contractor on vertical construction.

The submitted plans reflect a slightly smaller footprint than some of the more recent Publix stores. The Loughman’s Crossing store that was built this year on U.S. 17-92 in Davenport was a new 52,000-square-foot prototype. The Lakeland-based grocer also filed plans earlier this year to raze the store at in Shoppes at Lake Village in Leesburg and build a 52,000-square-foot replacement store on the site.

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