Lotte Plaza Market, a chain of Asian grocery stores, is preparing to convert the closed Best Buy it bought in the Regency area of Arlington in January 2022.
It would be the Maryland-based company’s third Florida store. It opened in Orlando and is hiring for a Tampa location.
It has 14 stores in Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and Florida with a goal of opening 50 Lotte Plaza Market locations by 2030.
The city is reviewing a permit application for the renovation of the 45,799-square-foot Best Buy on almost 3.4 acres at 9355 Atlantic Blvd.
While the intake job cost is listed at $7 million, that will be updated as the contractor is identified and plans approved.
Casco of St. Louis is the architect and engineer.
Plans show interior and exterior renovations.
Inside, plans show grocery, meat, seafood and produce areas and at least seven food vendor stations and a food court area.
There also is space for a bakery.
Best Buy closed the store in March 2021. It was built in 1999.
SW Jacksonville LLC, led by Maryland-based Sungwon Distributor LLC agent Sang Lee, bought the property Jan. 13, 2022.
Sungwon Distributor LLC is based in Jessup, Maryland. Sung Lee is the CEO.
Colliers Executive Director Jason Ryals and Senior Associate Gina Kline in Jacksonville represented the seller in the transaction. Ryals said the purchase price was $4 million.
Ryals said SW Jacksonville’s broker was Daniel Lynch III, a partner with Atlantic Retail Properties in West Palm Beach.
The Duval County Property Appraiser assessed the property for tax purposes at $3.5 million for 2022.
Lotteplaza.com says that since 1976, Lotte Plaza Market “has strived to be the premier source for Asian groceries in Maryland and Virginia.”
“Our desire to continuously improve customer relations and contribute to the community we serve has helped us grow from a single store in 1989 to 12 locations throughout Maryland, Virginia, and Florida.”
The site says the company was founded in 1976 and opened in Maryland in 1989.
The website shows six locations in both Maryland and Virginia and one each in New Jersey and Florida. That Orlando store opened in 2019.
The Tampa location
Lotteplaza.com says its Tampa store is coming soon and is hiring.
Thatssotampa.com reported Aug. 29, 2023, that new photos recently posted in the Tampa Bay Asian Foodies Facebook group show the official Lotte Market signage up at 17605 Bruce B Downs Blvd.
Neighborhoodnewsonline.net reported April 17, 2022, that Lotte Plaza Market filed plans with the city of Tampa to renovate a former 49,432-square-foot Sweetbay Supermarket that will include about 11,000 square feet of storage and cooler space.
The site said Lotte Plaza Market will transform “the inside of the former grocery store into a marketplace that sells Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese food items and ingredients, a wide selection of meats and fresh fish and seafood and a huge variety of fruits and vegetables not found at American grocery stores.”
The site said the Lotte Plaza Market will include at least three restaurants in its food court, as well as a bakery and a tea stand.
It said renovations will cost about $4.5 million.
The owners of the chain paid $7 million for the former Sweetbay Market building in January 2021. The Sweetbay building closed in 2013 and had been unoccupied since.
The sizes of the Tampa and Jacksonville stores are similar to those of a Publix Super Market or a Winn-Dixie.
Where Lotte is opening in Florida
Sang Lee registered with the state to do business in Florida.
Lee registered SW Jacksonville LLC in December 2021; SW Tampa LLC in November 2020; and Sungwon Orlando LLC in June 2016.
It appears that it can take several years for the stores to open.
The Orlando LLC was registered in 2016 and the store opened in 2019.
The Tampa name was registered in November 2020, the building purchase made in January 2021 and the plans filed in 2022.
The Jacksonville name, filed in December 2021, came the month before the property was purchased, with plans filed in September 2023.
Sungwon Miami LLC was registered in June 2022, indicating a fourth Florida location.
What Lotte sells
The store offers meats, seafood, produce and specialty products, including packaged teas, sauces and fresh fruits and vegetables.
“All the highest quality groceries and specialty products made in Korea are found inside Lotte. From noodles and rice to unique cooking ingredients, from snacks to ready-to-eat meals, they have a complete selection of foods and brands for the entire family,” the thatssotampa.com site says.
CEO Sung Lee says on the lotteplaza.com that:
“Our growth in the Korean Industry has reached the limits of the market. To continue our success, we must adapt to a larger base of customers, and meet their diverse needs in the retail market,” he said.
“Technological innovations, customer-centric management policies, and a commitment to continuously adapting our efforts to match customer demand will carry us to the next phase of growth.”
RD International
Pending permitting, Lotte Plaza Market would open after RD International, which intends to start operations by year-end or early next year in a renovated Winn-Dixie that closed in 2017 in the Hogan area.
The store is 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, about 5 miles southwest of the Lotte Plaza Market.
“We are still working on it and still remodeling,” said Irene Zhang, the representative for owner and founder Steven Yuan, on Sept. 5.
She said RD International’s focus is on live seafood, while Lotte is a Korean market that focuses more on groceries.
Both are good for the region, she said.
“It is good because it can educate locals to understand more about the Asian culture and groceries and they can get used to it and buy more,” Zhang said.
Zhang said she and Yuan are now working with the displays and that freezers and the fish tanks are installed.
RD International expects to have a food court with at least 12 vendors, and Zhang said one or two remain available.
The Asian and international supermarket will include fresh produce, a bakery, food-court operators, a hot food bar, groceries and – its specialty – 60 fish tanks for live seafood, including lobster, shrimp and crab.
It will be the second RD International Market in the state. The first market, smaller at 11,000 square feet, opened four years ago in Lake Worth. It has 30 tanks for live seafood.
The internationalmarketfl.com site says the Asian and seafood supermarket features fresh and live seafood, fresh produce, meats, a bakery, vegetables and fruits, beef and wine, boba tea, Asian snacks, roast duck and BBQ ribs.
Plans for the Jacksonville market 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.
“We have all kinds of seafood, live seafood, fresh seafood, frozen seafood, processed seafood,” 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.
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 previously, in sharing how they chose the location.
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.
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.