Winn-Dixie Confirmed to Reopen in Zephyrhills' Westgate Shopping Center, Decades After Closing

Winn-Dixie is coming back to Zephyrhills, and it's coming back to the exact shopping center it left almost 30 years ago. The grocery chain is planning a new store at 4840 Allen Road in the Westgate Shopping Center, taking over the space left empty by Big Lots, according to a report published September 16 and confirmed by a Winn-Dixie representative.

The company has not set an exact opening date, but the store is expected to open in the coming months.

A Building That's Done This Before

The Big Lots space isn't new to grocery shelves. From 1983 to 1997, that same building held a Winn-Dixie, back when Westgate Shopping Center first opened on Zephyrhills' west side. It launched in October 1983 alongside anchor tenants Wal-Mart, Bealls, and Eckerd Drugs, and it was the first major shopping center built away from Gall Boulevard, the city's traditional retail strip downtown.

Westgate opened at a time when Zephyrhills' west side was filling in fast with new development, much of it mobile home communities built for retirees moving to the area. The shopping center was designed to catch that growth. Winn-Dixie stayed for 14 years before closing in 1997, and the building has cycled through other retail tenants since, most recently Big Lots.

What's There Now

Westgate today is a mixed bag of local and national tenants. Along with the incoming Winn-Dixie, the center is home to Dice's Dairy N Dogs, Dollar Tree, Life's Treasures, and Ace Hardware. A full-size grocery anchor filling the long-vacant Big Lots spot gives the center a reason to draw shoppers back on a regular basis, not just for a hardware run or a dollar-store errand.

For west-side residents who remember shopping at the original Westgate Winn-Dixie in the 1980s and '90s, the return closes a loop that's been open for nearly three decades. For newer residents, it means one more full grocery option outside the Gall Boulevard corridor, in a part of town that's grown considerably since those retiree-focused mobile home communities first went up.

No details have been released yet on hiring, store hours, or a grand-opening date. Winn-Dixie says more information will come as the opening date gets closer.

Want to keep up with what's opening and closing around Zephyrhills? Visit Zephyrhills Community Website for ongoing coverage, and share what you remember about the old Westgate Winn-Dixie or what you're hoping to see in the new one in our Community Forum. You can also find more local business stories and news updates as this story develops.