A Winn-Dixie store that closed in 2017 in the Hogan area is becoming RD International Market, the second in Florida.
The Asian and international supermarket will include fresh produce, a bakery, 13 to 14 food-court operators, hot food bar, groceries and – its specialty – 60 fish tanks for live seafood, including lobster, shrimp and crab.
The first market opened four years ago in Lake Worth. It has 30 live seafood tanks.
Steven Yuan is the founder and owner. He is setting up the Jacksonville store and expects it to open in about four months.
At about 11,000 square feet, the Lake Worth store is about a fifth of the size of the Jacksonville location under renovation at 7534 Beach Blvd. in the Beach Boulevard Shopping Center near the eastern access to the Hart Expressway.
The center is along Beach Boulevard at Hogan and Parental Home roads.
RDInternationalMarket.com, which has Yuan’s contact information, says the Asian and seafood supermarket will feature restaurants including Hunan Szechuan cuisines, a dim sum restaurant, bubble tea shop, Cantonese style barbecue and more.
Yuan and Irene Zhang, his sister and a company representative, expect the center to create 80 jobs.
The website says the market will host community events throughout the year.
Plans show food-court bays, a seating area, a market main kitchen and grocery shelving, freezers, coolers, a fish tank and fish display area, and sales counters and registers. Customers can have their seafood cleaned and cooked at the store to take with them or to eat in the food-court seating.
“A lot of grandparents take the kids as a field trip to our store,” Zhang said.
RD International Market uses local seafood and imports, such as lobster from Boston and Dungeness crab from Washington state, Zhang said.
She and Yuan said it also will offer shrimp, scallops, clams, oysters, mussels, eel, tilapia, sea bass and geoduck.
“We have all kinds of seafood, live seafood, fresh seafood, frozen seafood, processed seafood,” Zhang said.
Yuan also is looking for operators and tenants for the hot food bar and bakery.
He said 80% of the food-court leases have been signed.
“All these people are experienced restaurant people so they will bring different kinds of cuisine,” Zhang said.
The city issued a permit June 2 for Master Contractors Inc. of Lake Worth to renovate the 52,600-square-foot store at a construction cost of $980,000. The architect is Sandra Puerta of Lake Worth. There is new flooring, shelving, carts and other equipment and furnishings.
While the store has a strong inventory of Asian food, the goal is to serve an international market.
“There is a large Asian population in Jacksonville,” Zhang said, in sharing how they chose the location.
While there are smaller Asian and international groceries, there is no large one with a wide selection of live seafood, she said.
“Jacksonville is a big city,” she said, and the Beach Boulevard address is conveniently located.
The U.S. Census reports that as of 2022, the Asian population in Jacksonville is estimated at more than 47,500, or 4.9% of the city’s population. That is up 35% from 35,200 in 2010.
The ZIP codes with the highest Asian population include 32256, 32246, 32207, 32258 and, where the store will open, 32216, which is central to the others.
With Jacksonville’s waterfront and fishing, “it is a very good place to have a seafood market,” Zhang said.
They intend to carry Florida-sourced fish and produce to the extent available.
Zhang said that pending permitting, construction and materials, the market could open this fall.
Yuan and Zhang said the hours likely will be 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily.
The property owner is 1980 Union Port Associates LLC of New York City. Goldstein Commercial Properties Inc. is the landlord representative.
“I think RD International will provide a new concept in the food market space in Jacksonville,” said Barry Goldstein, president of Jacksonville-based Goldstein Commercial Properties.
“They will offer a big variety of fresh seafood with live tanks, and will have a new concept in the food store industry,” he said, about the on-premise food court.
Goldstein said RD International Market will have one of the largest stores in North Florida with about 50,000 square feet of space.
“I think their concept will be an enhancement to the typical grocery market food stores in Jacksonville,” he said, “and offer a large variety of fresh seafood not typically found throughout the Jacksonville market stores.”
