Aldi confirms South Tampa store will open later this year

An Aldi executive said Monday that the company expects to open its new store in South Tampa, now under construction, later this year.

Matt Thon, the German grocer’s divisional vice president, did not give an exact day, saying in an email to the Business Observer that, “At this time, we do not have any additional information to share regarding the new Tampa store but will be sure to reach back out in the coming months with more detail on its opening.”

The grocery store chain is in the process of retrofitting a former Barnes & Noble store at 213 N. Dale Mabry, just at the outer edge of South Tampa. It will be about a mile south of Interstate 75 and Midtown Tampa — the 23-acre, 1.8 million-square-foot, $1 billion development — at the intersection of Dale Mabry Highway and Kennedy Boulevard.

In the email, Thon says the company’s sixth location in the city will have about 12,000 square feet of retail space “making it much easier to navigate than traditional grocery stores.”

“The consistent size of Aldi stores across the country is intentional, designed to save our shoppers time,” he says. “Every Aldi has a similar, easy-to-shop layout, so you’ll always feel like you’re shopping at your local store.”

Aldi is primarily known for its no-frills approach to shopping, focusing on keeping prices low rather than offering extras like hot bars and cheese counters. Instead, stores run with very few employees, stock about 90% private label products and don’t offer free grocery bags or bag your groceries.

One of the biggest examples of its operating principle is its approach to shopping carts.

The carts lined up at the front of each store are locked in place and require a quarter as a deposit before they can be used. The deposit, Aldi says, saves customers money in the long run because it doesn’t need additional employees to scour the parking lot for carts.

“At our core, we are different by design,” Aldi says on its website. “We are private-label trailblazers, and our company is built on these basic principles: simplicity matters, we sell the best food at low prices, and everything we do is purposefully designed to save people money.”

This approach has not affected its ability to lure in shoppers.

The chain opened its first discount grocery store in 1961 in Germany and its first U.S. store in Iowa in 1976. Its U.S. footprint today includes about 2,364 stores in the 39 states. That includes 216 in Florida.

The Tampa property where Aldi is moving into became available early last year when Barnes & Noble closed its store after 29 years and reopened in a new, smaller location about two miles away.