Natural foods market plans to open second area store early next year.
Lucky’s Market expects to employ about 150 people early next year when it opens in OakLeaf Station in southwest Jacksonville.
It will be the company’s second area store after its December 2016 opening in Neptune Beach.
“We tend to look for and find vibrant, thriving towns where people love good food and then we open stores there,” said spokeswoman Krista Torvik by email.
Torvik said Lucky’s is rapidly expanding in Florida. It has up to 20 leases signed for stores spanning from Montana to Florida, with the bulk in the Sunshine State.
Lucky’s operates 29 stores and anticipates that count growing to more than 40 by year-end.
She said the OakLeaf Station store, which will be near Orange Park, will open in the first quarter of next year.
The city is reviewing a permit application for Lucky’s Market Operating Co. LLC of Colorado to build-out 30,000 square feet of space in OakLeaf at 8380 Merchants Way.
The landlord is Sleiman Enterprises.
Lucky’s Market already is identified on a site plan by Sleiman Enterprises. It is leasing next to the 12-screen Epic Theatres.
No contractor is listed for the $1.5 million project for interior and exterior work on the store.
MCG Architecture of Cleveland is the architect.
OakLeaf Station is along Merchants Way, south of Argyle Forest Boulevard.
The Neptune Beach store is at 580 Atlantic Blvd.
Lucky’s Market operates in 11 states.
Luckysmarket.com site shows that it has 10 stores in Florida and two coming soon in St. Petersburg and Hunters Creek in the Orlando area.
Asked whether additional Jacksonville area stores are planned, Torvik said Lucky’s is “always looking for new locations in interesting towns.”
Founded in 2003, Lucky’s Market is focused on natural, organic and locally grown products.
Bento Asian Kitchen + Sushi intends to open in Jacksonville Beach next summer.
The quick-casual pan-Asian restaurant signed a lease for a 3,000-square-foot restaurant at 1230 Beach Blvd. in an almost 12,000-square-foot building on the Beach Plaza Outparcel, an Ashco Inc. development.
It will be the third Bento in Jacksonville and the first at the Beaches.
Brothers Jimmy and Johnny Tung own Orlando-based Bento. Its nine locations include the first two in Jacksonville at St. Johns Town Center and in the Tinseltown area.
A standalone building at the southern end of Arlington’s Town & Country Shopping Center is coming down.
The city issued a permit for Burkhalter Wrecking Inc. to demolish the almost 21,700-square-foot building along the Arlington Expressway ramp at a cost of $45,650.
Landlord Town & Country Shopping Center Inc. said it has no plans other than to increase visibility.
