Roughly four months since Hi Nabor closed its doors in the Drusilla Village Shopping Center after 25 years in business there, the locally-owned grocer will open its new 28,000-square-foot store in the Broadmoor Village Shopping Center on Thursday morning.
“Our family will continue the tradition of offering the best meat, local produce and seafood at great prices,” Hi Nabor President Jim Crifasi says in a prepared statement issued today. “The outpouring of support from the area residents has been overwhelming, and we are excited to show what we have done to turn this location into a great place to shop.”
Crifasi says the new store will feature a smoothie bar and fresh sushi daily, prepared by an in-store sushi chef. With the opening, the Broadmoor shopping center—which has been extensively renovated in recent years—adds another major anchor tenant. The center’s other anchor tenant is Planet Fitness, which occupies a 28,000-square-foot space. Other tenants include Family Dollar, and a Capital One Bank branch is on an outparcel at the center.
A roughly 42,000-square-foot building adjacent to the closed Broadmoor Theatre on the 21-acre site recently was demolished, and the former theatre is also expected to be torn down sometime next year. Clark Heebe, who owns the shopping center, recently purchased the roughly 21 acres where the center sits on Florida Boulevard, near the Airline Highway intersection, for $1 million. Though he’s owned the buildings for years, Heebe had been leasing the land under a long-term deal that wasn’t set to expire for another 36 years. He says owning the land will give him more flexibility to create outparcels and make other improvements.
Meanwhile, over at the Drusilla Village Shopping Center—where the Crifasis were unable to come to terms on a new lease agreement with Donnie Jarreau, who bought the center in April for $10.5 million—renovations are ongoing on the former Hi Nabor site for a 30,000-square-foot LeBlanc’s Frais Marche grocery store.
“In about 90 days we should have all the renovations complete and LeBlanc’s should be open,” Jarreau says. “It’s a major renovation: about $3 million just on the LeBlanc’s store and we’re spending another $2.5 million to renovate the center, resurface the lot and make other improvements.”
Jarreau says other new tenants in the center will be announced in the next few months. —Steve Sanoski
