New Naples Publix store opens Dec. 6

Photo by WILLIAM DESHAZER, Naples Daily News // Buy this photo

William DeShazer/Staff A man walks to his car on the newly remolded side at Naples Plaza on Tuesday Oct. 9, 2012.

NAPLES — The new Publix in the Naples Plaza, across from Coastland Center mall, will open at 8 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 6, officials said Tuesday.

The 56,000-square-foot "hybrid" store at 1981 U.S. 41 N. will feature natural and organic products, a soup bar, a salad bar, and a Pacific wok so customers can eat Mongolian beef and other Pan-Asian favorites, said Shannon Patten, a Publix spokeswoman in Lakeland.

The new store No. 1,434 will replace store No. 76, which work crews razed earlier this year. The original Publix on that site was built in 1962.

The new Publix will be similar to the 54,000-square-foot hybrid Publix at Pelican Bay, on the southwest corner of U.S. 41 and Vanderbilt Beach Road, that opened in October 2010, Patten said.

"The design is different," she said of the new Publix. "It's not a store that we can put on every single corner, but we do want to provide stores that give our customers a wide array of different foods and services. It will have everything that traditional stores have, but it also has all of those extra features."

The new store is expected to serve the Old Naples, Coquina Sands, Moorings, River Park and Lake Park neighborhoods, just as the old store did.