Tuesday, February 5, 2013
The Midtown Sweetbay is closing Wednesday. Two other St. Pete Sweetbays, at 6095 Ninth Ave. N., and 955 62nd Ave. S. are closing Tuesday .
Two Sweetbay Supermarkets in St. Pete will close their doors today as part of a company-wide shuttering of under-performing stores, according to an article on TBO.com. On Wedneday, the controversial Midtown Sweetbay is set to close. The closing dates are ahead of schedule. The three stores were among 33 Sweetbays scheduled to close in February. The Midtown Sweetbay at 1794 22nd St. S. will officially close Wednesday, TBO reports, while the stores at 6095 Ninth Ave. N., and 955 62nd Ave. S are closing Tuesday. Many stores began liquidation sales in the last two weeks, with some stores offering as much as 50 percent off. Several closing dates were moved up, and the rest will close by Wednesday. For a complete list of the new closing dates…
Thursday, January 31, 2013
The Midtown Sweetbay is scheduled to close by mid-February, but much of the store is empty since no re-stocking has occurred since the closing announcement.
A last-ditch effort by the City of St. Petersburg to stop or delay the closing of the Midtown Sweetbay has failed. According to the Tampa Bay Times, Mayor Bill Foster and Sweetbay landlord Larry Newsome were told the planned mid-February closure would happen as scheduled. The company said it would help find a new grocer in the Tangerine Plaza in Midtown. "We look forward to working together with Mayor Foster to quickly find a grocer that can help meet the needs of this community," Sweetbay spokeswoman Nicole LeBeau said Wednesday morning." In previous public meetings Foster said he expected Sweetbay to close, and in the event it did, the city is in conversations with other grocery vendors to quickly fill the space. Foster and city …
Monday, January 28, 2013
Mayor Foster and council members Wengay Newton and Leslie Curran got into a very heated discussion Jan. 24 over the pending closure of the Midtown Sweetbay.
As a late edition to the Jan. 24 St. Petersburg City Council meeting, Mayor Bill Foster provided an update on plans to ensure Midtown does not lose its grocery store. Foster talked about his ongoing efforts to get in touch with the right people with Sweetbay and if that did not work, he hoped to have another grocery vendor fill the store. From there, the tensions rose as accusations were made, gavels slammed and insults thrown as council members Wengay Newton and Leslie Curran questioned Foster's plans and his handling of the Midtown Sweetbay. At issue is that despite claiming silence from Sweetbay, is the report that Foster met with Sweetbay officials in April 2011 about the struggling store. Foster said his calendar shows he met with …
Monday, January 21, 2013
City leaders and the landlord of the Midtown Sweetbay property have not heard directly from Sweetbay regarding the closure of the store.
Walk through the Sweetbay grocery store in the Tangerine Shopping Plaza, at 22nd Street and 18th Avenue South. There is row after row of empty shelves, where once there were fresh foods. Fresh vegetables are nearly gone, as are the meats. The deli is empty. There is no milk. And, there appears to be no plans by Sweetbay to restock its shelves. The store is quickly going out of business. On Jan. 16, Sweetbay announced it would close three 'underperforming' St. Petersburg stores by mid-February, part of a consolidation of stores across Florida. St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster and city leaders gathered outside the Sweetbay today to urge the The Delhaize Group, the parent company of Sweetbay, to reconsider ... or at least come to the table…
Thursday, January 17, 2013
The trio are among 33 'under performing' stores across Florida slated to shut down for good.
Three St. Petersburg Sweetbay grocery stores will close before the end of February, the company announced late Wednesday night. The St. Pete stores are among 33 "underperforming" locations in Florida that will soon close. St. Pete Stores to Close: According to TBO, around 2,000 people will lose their jobs in Florida as a result of the closings. "They are simply underperforming stores," said Sweetbay spokeswoman Nicole LeBeau. "Some of them, the leases were coming up, and just based on the sales of the stores they were selected." The Delhaize Group, which owns Sweetbay, made the announcement Wednesday as it released its 2012 annual report. According to the report, "We announce today store closures, the majority of which will occur at …
Steve
10:34 am on Thursday, January 31, 2013
I frankly don't think that somebody is going to rush in to take up a failed store--certainly not anybody interested in replicating a market with the scale and scope of the current Sweetbay. In some ways, one of the failures in the store may have been in its being "overambitious." My observation is that Sweetbay is incredibly inept at marketing for various areas: one Sweeetbay anywhere looks the … more ›