WESLEY CHAPEL \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
A slight hiccup: The new Wesley Chapel Target is not the world\u2019s second-largest, Lisenbery said. The developer of the 148,500-square-foot superstore had put banners up declaring it so \u2014 but after confirming with his corporate leaders, Lisenbery had those posters taken down.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
But the hype around the size of Florida\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel so overstimulated looking at all these people,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
As families lined up for photos with the Target mascot, Bullseye the dog, it felt like Disney World.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s Countryside Mall.<\/p>\n
The Wesley Chapel store is 20,000 square feet larger than an average Target and has about five times the backroom space. It\u2019s meant to act as a hub for fulfilling online and drive-up orders and serving subscribers to Target 360, the company\u2019s Amazon competitor. Same-day delivery and pickup services now account for more than 10% of Target\u2019s sales.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a perfect fit for Florida,\u201d said Paul Rutledge, a senior brokerage associate for LQ Commercial Real Estate in Tampa Bay. \u201cFlorida is attracting a lot of people … They have figured out a large segment of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
That Target is expanding in Tampa Bay suggests the brand fares well here, Rutledge said.<\/p>\n
Lisenbery repeated one word when discussing the new store: \u201cconvenience.\u201d<\/p>\n
A convenient location just off Interstate 75. A large drive-up section for those who don\u2019t want to leave their cars. Wide aisles and expanded sections for groceries and toys. Two dozen varieties of laundry detergent.<\/p>\n
But on Oct. 12, the overflow crowd forced some customers to park \u2014 inconveniently \u2014 across the street, negotiate four lanes of traffic and cling to the parking lot curb as cars whizzed by at 15 mph.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay has two brands of convenience. In Pasco County, all of its more than 560,000 residents live in suburban areas where it\u2019s theoretically easy to get anywhere with a car. In Hillsborough, its unincorporated suburbs are expected to grow the fastest.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Target isn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s a Starbucks, CVS Pharmacy, Target Optical and Apple shop.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
One man giggled as he plunked a Lego version of Dobby the elf from the \u201cHarry Potter\u201d series in his basket. \u201cThat\u2019s my birthday gift,\u201d he told his friends.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are told to stay away from Target by our significant others,\u201d joked Wesley Chapel resident Faye Murray as she waited for a Starbucks drink to fuel her shopping trip.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s too easy to add a frivolous purchase to the cart, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I need a Q-tip, (I say) \u2018Let\u2019s go to Target,\u2019\u201d her friend Nikole Lucas added.<\/p>\n
Nothing better than an opening celebration to excuse another Target run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WESLEY CHAPEL \u2014 A crowd of 250 Target superfans had lined up at the Grove shopping complex off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[12681,12682,28,12675,1338,12679,12680,12678,11771,135,1526,9019,137,136,11774,12677,8619,12676],"class_list":["post-14544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-big-box-store","tag-distribution-marketing","tag-florida","tag-grove-shopping-complex","tag-pasco-county","tag-retail-companies","tag-retail-formats","tag-retailing","tag-suburb","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-area","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-target","tag-target-corporation","tag-wesley-chapel","tag-wesley-chapel-target"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}