The guessing game about a new grocery store in the eastern part of Shelby County should begin any day now.

At the monthly Lakeland Board of Commissioners meeting earlier this month, City Attorney Will Patterson mentioned that an unnamed anchor grocery chain is interested in a 7-plus-acre parcel (as well as an additional 3-plus-acre parcel for parking) on the north side of U.S. 64 at Berryhill Road.

And any time word of a grocery store moving into the area surfaces, people start running off the litany of possibilities.

Publix?

A second Trader Joe’s location?

Something along the line of Whole Foods? Fresh Market?

ALDI and Sprouts already are in the U.S. 64 corridor. As is Kroger across the highway in Memphis.

Or is the mystery a company absent from the Memphis market?

In addition to the name of the grocery, there is one other mystery to solve – how to accommodate the store selling beer and wine since it is 17 feet too close to Macon Road Baptist Church.

Commissioner Wesley Wright has talked with many sources, and there are theories on the grocery chain’s identity.

Purely speculating, he thinks Publix is possible, but he notes the company would probably need multiple sites in the Memphis market to justify their distribution network, which includes a center in Birmingham, Alabama.

“I lean towards thinking they just need multiple locations and they’re going to move here within five years,” he said. “(U.S.) 64 is a huge corridor with a lot of traffic flowing between Shelby County and Fayette County. Developers recognize this. Major chains for restaurants and retail know this.”

Other city officials said they don’t know which grocer is interested. Lakeland City Manager Shane Horn says the project is in the exploratory phase at this time. 

“I don’t know the grocery store chain, (the developer is) still doing due diligence,” Horn said. “There is not much to share at this point. They are still trying to lock down letters of intent with property owners.”

He does know that the developer is very excited about the wooded and undeveloped location.

Either the developer or the grocery chain is from the Houston, Texas area, according to Patterson, and one regional chain headquartered near Houston is Randalls, owned by Alberstons Companies.

If the business decides to locate at the intersection, the suburb would need to change its requirements for the distance between property lines of a church, school or other gathering place – in this case Macon Road Baptist Church – and an establishment that sells beer and wine from 300 feet to less than the current 283 feet separation.

Patterson presented several ideas to address the buffer between the business and the church, including amending the code’s required distance from 300 feet to 275 feet.

Lakeland Commissioner Jim Atkinson liked that suggestion.

The 7-plus-acre parcel could also be subdivided into two sections, with the section farthest west from the church property earmarked for the grocery building. That would create the additional distance needed to reach 300 feet.

“The bigger distinction in my mind is that we’re not talking about a store called like Beers R Us here. We’re talking about a grocery store, which is very different from strictly a beer store or a liquor store or something else,” Atkinson said. “So is there a way to exempt grocery stores?”

He pointed out that beer sales are a very small part of what a grocery store sells.

“I think the clear message that we should probably convey to them to some degree is that we are absolutely open and willing to figure out what that spacing number is, and we’re willing to work with them on it,” Lakeland Mayor Mike Cunningham said. “Because this could be a game-changer for us in the near future.”