Wal-Mart files plan to build on former Winn-Dixie site

Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has filed a site plan with the city of Sarasota to develop a Walmart Neighborhood Market on the site of a closed North Tamiami Trail Winn-Dixie. The retailer has suggested it would demolish the 39,961-square-foot shuttered grocery at 3500 N. Tamiami Trail and parking lot to create a 33,803-square-foot neighborhood market and 135 parking spaces.

Walmart Neighborhood Markets only carry groceries.

“Most of the people are pretty excited,” says former Sarasota Commissioner Dick Clapp, who lives in the Indian Beach/Sapphire Shores neighborhood. “A new grocery store would be great.”

North Trail neighborhoods have been without a supermarket since the Winn-Dixie, which had been there for four decades, closed last fall.

Currently, the nearest grocery store is the Publix at North Tamiami Trail and 10th Street.

City staff is asking Wal-Mart to hire local workers to perform the construction.

As for the impact on nearby residents, city transportation engineers believe the Walmart will have less of an impact on North Trail traffic because the store will be smaller.

If it is developed, the neighborhood market would be the first in Sarasota County. There are 27 statewide, including one each in Tampa, Largo and Pinellas Park.

-Reporting by Robin Roy, correspondent