Almost 800 headquarters employees joined the Baymeadows area workforce the past week as Southeastern Grocers relocated most of its Jacksonville Store Support Center from the Westside.
Jacksonville-based Southeastern Grocers LLC, whose banners are Bi-Lo, Winn-Dixie and Harveys, moved into Building 200 in the Prominence office park at Baymeadows Road and Interstate 95.
The move includes the grocery chain’s top executives.
Southeastern Grocers said the move also creates more conference space, two private mother’s rooms, a state-of-the-art test kitchen, nature paths and more parking.
The workspace is designed as an open environment with no offices but with conference, meeting and other private rooms available as needed.
While 790 associates moved, more than 330 remain at 5050 Edgewood Court, which has become the Southeastern Grocers Technology Center.
The Westside building was home to Winn-Dixie Stores Inc., which Bi-Lo LLC bought in 2012.
Greenville, S.C.-based Bi-Lo located the merged company’s headquarters in Jacksonville and later changed the name to Southeastern Grocers.
Zack Bingham, senior director of communications, said the majority of associates at the Edgewood support center, Astor, Baldwin and Baypine offices have moved to the four-story, 160,000-square-foot building at 8928 Prominence Parkway.
Bingham said the remodeled space streamlines operations. Jacksonville-based RS&H was the architect.
Southeastern Grocers will introduce a test kitchen at the Prominence center, where a chef will create product formulations and food-science technicians will test foods for quality, taste and safety.
The kitchen will be a showcase with full-view windows that allow associates to watch the teams.
Also inside the building, there will be 53 conference and team-meeting rooms, up from 18 in the West Jacksonville center.
The SEG Market will provide self-service snacks and drinks for sale to employees, while a full-service café in the adjacent building offers hot meals.
Those options are in addition to the food trucks that Southeastern Grocers will bring in daily and the restaurants in the Baymeadows area.
Outside the center, there are running and walking trails throughout the park, which is a 54-acre property that borders a conservation and mitigation area.
Parking is more abundant, with 926 spaces for employees, 200 more than at the Westside center.
Southeastern Grocers has not commented about the cost of renovations.
The approved building permit showed a $6.2 million job cost for renovations.
The new headquarters is 2 miles west of the closest Winn-Dixie store, and about 4 miles west of the pilot Winn-Dixie that opened in February.
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