WESLEY CHAPEL — A crowd of 250 Target superfans had lined up at the Grove shopping complex off State Road 54 when store director Rider Lisenbery unlocked the doors at 8 a.m.
They had come not for a Black Friday sale or to snag any particular deals, but merely to celebrate the grand opening of a suburban Target that social media posts and other outlets had billed as the second largest in the world.
A slight hiccup: The new Wesley Chapel Target is not the world’s second-largest, Lisenbery said. The developer of the 148,500-square-foot superstore had put banners up declaring it so — but after confirming with his corporate leaders, Lisenbery had those posters taken down.
The Clearwater Target on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard and a store farther south in Wesley Chapel boast 180,000 square feet or more. A new store in Bradenton is 500 square feet larger, according to Target’s website.
But the hype around the size of Florida’s newest Target paid off. At 2:30 p.m. Oct. 12, every spot in the parking lot was full and all 300 shopping carts were in use.
“I feel so overstimulated looking at all these people,” one team member confided to another as dozens crowded around the sliding glass doors. Some, like Angelie Rodriguez, 23, had come not to fulfill a shopping list, but to check out the store they had seen rising from concrete foundations over two years.
As families lined up for photos with the Target mascot, Bullseye the dog, it felt like Disney World.
The shiny retail outpost is one of 300 stores Target aims to build over the next decade. But the business faces headwinds. Its stock has fallen almost 15% over three months. Sales have tumbled over the past two years.
Nevertheless, the company has gone all-in on adding new superstores to compete with Walmart and Amazon. Tampa Bay is getting three 150,000-square-foot stores, with another two-story behemoth coming to Clearwater’s Countryside Mall.
The Wesley Chapel store is 20,000 square feet larger than an average Target and has about five times the backroom space. It’s meant to act as a hub for fulfilling online and drive-up orders and serving subscribers to Target 360, the company’s Amazon competitor. Same-day delivery and pickup services now account for more than 10% of Target’s sales.
“They’re a perfect fit for Florida,” said Paul Rutledge, a senior brokerage associate for LQ Commercial Real Estate in Tampa Bay. “Florida is attracting a lot of people … They have figured out a large segment of them.”
Fast-growing suburban areas like Pasco and Manatee counties are perfect for Target and other retail concepts, Rutledge said. Land is cheap and ample, the roads are getting wider, and new residents are flocking to apartments and homes that are more affordable than in Tampa or St. Petersburg.
That Target is expanding in Tampa Bay suggests the brand fares well here, Rutledge said.
Lisenbery repeated one word when discussing the new store: “convenience.”
A convenient location just off Interstate 75. A large drive-up section for those who don’t want to leave their cars. Wide aisles and expanded sections for groceries and toys. Two dozen varieties of laundry detergent.
But on Oct. 12, the overflow crowd forced some customers to park — inconveniently — across the street, negotiate four lanes of traffic and cling to the parking lot curb as cars whizzed by at 15 mph.
Tampa Bay has two brands of convenience. In Pasco County, all of its more than 560,000 residents live in suburban areas where it’s theoretically easy to get anywhere with a car. In Hillsborough, its unincorporated suburbs are expected to grow the fastest.
Then there’s the buzzy (and considerably more expensive) places like Water Street that prioritize urban luxury. There is public transit, bike lanes and a Publix and CVS within walking distance of hundreds of apartment units.
Target isn’t expanding its smaller locations, often in denser cities where retail space is scant, nearly as fast as mega-stores in places like Wesley Chapel. While the brand added three stores that are less than 50,000 square feet, it added more than a dozen between 50,000 and 170,000 square feet over the last year, according to a quarterly earnings report.
Target thrives in suburban sprawl. The Wesley Chapel store has polished concrete floors and big floor-to-ceiling windows that let in natural light. There’s a Starbucks, CVS Pharmacy, Target Optical and Apple shop.
It’s easy to get lost for a couple of hours in the thrill of limitless choice and forget about the close calls with other cars in the parking lot and startling lack of shade outside.
There was a particular playfulness on Oct. 12, when the shelves were fully stocked and customers felt they were experiencing something novel. Parents shepherded young kids, and nostalgic 20-somethings crowded the sprawling toy section.
One man giggled as he plunked a Lego version of Dobby the elf from the “Harry Potter” series in his basket. “That’s my birthday gift,” he told his friends.
“We are told to stay away from Target by our significant others,” joked Wesley Chapel resident Faye Murray as she waited for a Starbucks drink to fuel her shopping trip.
It’s too easy to add a frivolous purchase to the cart, she said.
“If I need a Q-tip, (I say) ‘Let’s go to Target,’” her friend Nikole Lucas added.
Nothing better than an opening celebration to excuse another Target run.