Publix pays $13M for waterfront Hollywood site approved for supermarket

Publix paid $12.8 million for a waterfront Hollywood development site where it plans to build a new store.

Real estate investor Albert Benalloun, through an affiliate, sold the 1.1 acres of land at 3100 South Ocean Drive to an entity tied to Lakeland-based Publix Super Markets, according to a deed. The property faces the Intracoastal Waterway and is a block west from the ocean.

Albert Benalloun, founder and principal of Miami Beach-based Transamerican Development, had paid $4.5 million for the land in 2019, records show.

The Hollywood City Commission in 2020 approved the construction of a roughly 30,000-square-foot Publix. The unanimous vote came after a city planning board also OK’d plans.

The store would include a boat dock and would be smaller than the typical 54,000-square-foot Publix stores in more suburban locations, Benalloun’s representatives told the planning board in 2020. The store would be built as part of the second phase of the Ocean Palms planned development, which includes the 38-story, 250-unit condo tower Ocean Palms, built in 2006 at 3101 South Ocean Drive.

Publix has increasingly invested in real estate, scooping up development sites for both its stores and for larger shopping plazas. Last year, the supermarket bought the development site for a Fort Lauderdale store at 2985 North Ocean Boulevard for $10 million.

Publix also bought the 20-acre Westlake shopping plaza development site at 5075 Seminole Pratt Whitney Road for $9.1 million last year. The property is slated for a 140,000-square-foot outdoor center. The first phase will include eight stores anchored by a 50,000-square-foot Publix grocery and liquor store.

While the retail market took a hit at the onset of the pandemic, supermarkets and grocery store-anchored shopping centers have remained buoyant.  In turn, financing for Publix-anchored plazas has flowed.

In April, Michael and Spencer Friedman, who lead Miami Lakes-based CF Properties, scored a $35.6 million loan for a major facelift of the Publix-anchored Crossings Shopping Village at 12955 Southwest 112th Street in Kendall.

This month, Dacar Management, based in Dania Beach, secured a $81 million construction loan for a Hialeah mixed-use project with 244 apartments and retail anchored by Publix, Burlington and HomeGoods.