WELLINGTON PLAZA TO GET STAND-ALONE CVS STORE
Construction fences recently heralded the start of a months-long project to build a standalone CVS in a Wellington shopping plaza.
Regency Centers owns the Wellington Town Square plaza at Forest Hill and South Shore boulevards. The company received the OK on its plans last year, but is only just beginning the initial work needed to make a major switch: The Star Liquors store will be torn down to make way for the CVS, and once that is completed, Star Liquors will move into part of the space CVS now occupies.
The construction fences have not made parking easy for Publix or CVS customers. An entire aisle is blocked off, with nearly every other space filled in front of the typically bustling grocery store. On Monday, cars were parked to the end of each row as the dark green material covering the fences flapped in a drizzly breeze.
The work being done behind the fences will help crews shift the plaza’s entrance from Forest Hill Boulevard slightly west to make more room for CVS, Regency Centers spokesman Eric Davidson said. Construction on a new right-turn lane from Forest Hill Boulevard into the plaza is set to begin this week, he said.
As part of the work on Forest Hill Boulevard, crews also will realign the median opening to match the new entrance, plans show.
The 13,300-square-foot CVS will open in the summer of 2019, Davidson said. That’s an additional 3,000 square feet of room for CVS, including the new drive-through on the building’s southeast side.
While Star Liquors will be closed until the fourth quarter of 2019, its store in the Courtyard Shops plaza at 13860 Wellington Trace will remain open. Its new spot in the Town Square plaza will be about the same size it is now.
With the CVS space being split in half, that opens a new outparcel in the plaza for another tenant to join the already-packed Town Square. Davidson said a new retailer has yet to get on-board, but whoever does will join a lineup that includes Provident Jewelry, Publix, Short Stacks, La Fogata, the UPS Store, Subway and Topflight Martial Arts.
This is the third major project in the plaza since it was built in 1982. In 2003, the Publix was expanded and the plaza’s facades were updated. And beginning last year, the southeast end of the plaza was updated to create a larger space and distinct facade for Provident Jewelry.
A hint of Starbucks
In other construction news, you may have noticed a fence blocking part of the Village Green Center shopping plaza parking lot near Trader Joe’s. Say hello to Starbucks: That space is where a new location for the coffee chain is approved.
The plans were given the OK in January by the Village Council, and include building standalone medical office space on a now-grassy area just north of the plaza.
It will be the fourth drivethrough restaurant in the plaza, joining PDQ, Taco Bell and McDonald’s.