Trader Joe’s coming to South Beach

Joining the South Beach grocery turf war in the latter half of 2018: Trader Joe’s.

The popular national chain, which describes itself as “your neighborhood grocery store” while having a shifting eclectic, idiosyncratic product selection, is expected to be part of a retail-and-rental building called “17 West” announced Monday by developers Rock Soffer of Turnberry Associates and Elion Partners.

The five-story structure will be built along 17th Street at the corners of Alton Road and West Avenue with connecting bridges at the second and fifth floors. It’ll fill spaces long occupied by a Shell station (17th and Alton) and a parking lot (17th and West).

That building will accommodate the road out of the parking lot for Epicure, the Alton Road market that had Miami Beach’s high end food shopping dollars all to itself for decades. Lately, there’s been a few more dogs grabbing at that money pie.

The Sunset Harbour-area Publix opened in late 1998 with big organic food sections that sucked some business from Epicure. The Fresh Market, one block south of Publix, dropped into the fight in 2011 as a more direct competitor to Epicure. Whole Foods, now down on 10th and Alton, plans to build a 40,000-square foot location at 19th and Alton.

And, in 2018, Trader Joe’s.

This story was originally published February 6, 2017 at 7:46 PM with the headline "Trader Joe’s coming to South Beach."