ST. PETERSBURG — When the Publix at Eagles Park Retail Center opened in 1986, Mary Ann Buckingham was there. She never had a driver’s license — she grew up near Chicago and relied on trains and buses. In Florida, she walked through the Five Towns community with a push stroller to buy her groceries and did so for 35 years until she died last year at 84.
On the night of March 7, the store closed for good. Her family was the last to check out.
The Publix at Eagles Park, just steps from the largest 55-and-older community in St. Petersburg, is gone. For the roughly 1,700 residents of Five Towns who walked there for groceries and a reason to leave the house, the closure has left a void that a new store roughly miles away can’t fill.
About 20 of them packed into a third-floor room on a Thursday evening in late February for a potluck. There were pasta dishes, casseroles and desserts. The main topic of conversation: Publix closing. Eight days later, their beloved grocery store was gone.
Five Towns is a sprawling community of 1,328 condos spread across more than 100 acres. Built between 1972 and 1987, it has two clubhouses, six pools and 10 shuffleboard courts. What it no longer has is a grocery store within walking distance.
Residents on the upper floors of the community’s mid-rise buildings were used to looking out their windows and seeing dozens of neighbors in walkers or motorized wheelchairs making their way to and from Publix throughout the day. That foot traffic has stopped.
“This just puts one more burden on people around here that don’t need another one,” said Mollie Goldych, 82, who lives alone at Five Towns and walked to the Publix two or three times a week.
Publix closed the store at 5577 Park St. N. on March 7. The company opened a new $11 million location at 6605 38th Ave. N. on March 12 — about two miles away and well beyond walking distance for seniors who don’t drive.
Goldych moved into Five Towns 10 years ago. A Publix and a Bank of America within walking distance were part of the draw. Now both are gone.
Without a car, she estimates she’ll spend more than $20 roundtrip on a taxi or rideshare just to buy groceries.
Judy Northcut, 85, uses a walker and has lived at Five Towns for about a decade. Her son drives her to the grocery store. The new Publix means a longer trip for him and less independence for her.
“It’s quite the inconvenience,” Northcut said. “Not having a grocery store nearby.”
‘We’re losing everything around here’
Kathryn Ciaccia, 75, and her husband, Randy, also 75, have been married 56 years. They spend two months each winter at Five Towns and the rest of the year in New York. Even as part-time residents, they’ve watched the neighborhood hollow out — a nail/beauty salon gone, the Bank of America gone, now Publix.
“I feel for the residents,” Kathryn Ciaccia said. “We’re only here part-time, but I go to the Publix about four or five times a week. The people that live here full-time, especially the ones without any transportation, are going to have it tough.”
“We’re losing everything around here,” she said. “The only thing that comes here anymore are ambulances and fire trucks.”
Frank Williams, 73, is the Five Towns association president. He moved in about two years ago from the Garden Manor neighborhood in St. Petersburg and started organizing the potlucks to bring residents together. They’ve become popular — the Feb. 27 gathering filled the room.
“The people around here are very concerned,” Williams said. “It’s not just having a location that is nearby. There are a lot of people on fixed incomes, too.”
The Eagles Park Publix was a walking store from the start. Workers from nearby businesses walked or rode bikes. Residents took PSTA Bus Route 54, which ran along 54th Avenue from Tyrone Mall. Regulars knew not to buy ice cream — it would melt before they got home.
The closure also affects Paradise Shores, another 55-and-older community about a half-mile from Five Towns. Built in the early 1970s, it has 330 units. Between the two communities, more than 1,650 condos housing well over 2,000 seniors have lost their nearest grocery store.
There are other grocery stores in the area. A Winn-Dixie sits about 1.6 miles away, and Publix spokesperson Lindsey Willis pointed to several Publix locations within a less than two-mile radius.
“We are always evaluating our stores to provide our customers a pleasurable experience by having a store that meets their shopping needs for today and into the future,” Willis said in an email. She confirmed the Eagles Park location was a lease but declined to provide further details, citing company policy. Publix also declined to comment on the store’s performance.
A growing pattern
The Eagles Park closure is part of a broader wave of grocery store shutdowns hitting elderly communities across Florida and the nation.
A 2015 Sun Sentinel investigation found that more than 240,000 South Floridians 65 and older lived in food deserts. A third lived alone and roughly 40% had a disability that may have made it difficult to shop or drive. The investigation found that some of South Florida’s best-known retirement communities — places built around golf courses, clubhouses and pools — had become food deserts because the nearby grocery stores they were designed around had closed.
The problem has only grown since. Nationally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates 17.1 million Americans live in low-income areas more than a mile from the nearest supermarket. Store closures topped 15,000 in 2025, more than double the prior year, according to retail tracking firm Coresight Research.
Seniors bear the brunt. A Synchrony survey found that 74% of shoppers 65 and older buy their groceries in person, making them the most dependent on physical stores and the most exposed when those stores disappear.
A hollowed-out shopping center
The Eagles Park store, built in 1986, operated in a shopping center already gutted by vacancies. At least 16 storefronts sit empty. With Publix gone, the vacancy rate has jumped from roughly 43% to more than 60%, with Truist Bank as the only significant remaining tenant.
The center is owned by Miami Lakes-based Gator Eagle Partners, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Publix owns the 38th Avenue property. It demolished the former Albertsons there in September 2024 and began construction on a 57,658-square-foot replacement two months later.
For customers with cars, the new store is an upgrade. For the more than 2,000 seniors in Five Towns and Paradise Shores, the old store is already dark, and no one has offered a solution.
‘Where shopping is a pleasure’
On closing night, Mike Buckingham drove from New Port Richey with his sons to be the store’s last customers. His brother Brian met them there. Managers gave them a cake and flowers.
The next day, Buckingham took the flowers to his mother’s grave at Calvary Catholic Cemetery. Mary Ann Buckingham was there on opening day. Thirty-eight years later, her family closed it out.
“Like what the Publix slogan says, ‘Where shopping is a pleasure,'” Buckingham said. “On March 7th, 2026, it truly was.”