ACTION 8 UPDATE: New details on plans to close area Winn-Dixie stores

ACTION 8 UPDATE: We have more details on Winn-Dixie’s plans for its local stores as it pulls out of Alabama.

The store at Sturbridge on Vaughn Road will be closing in the next couple of days. It opened at the Sturbridge shopping center in 1993 and has long been the home of the “Stuff the Truck” food drive that Action 8 hosts with Tie and Doll, Inc., each school year.

As we have reported, that store, as well as the Winn-Dixie on Mobile Highway in Montgomery and the store in Wetumpka will become Piggly Wiggly Food for Less. We don’t yet know an opening date.

We have now learned the Mobile Highway store will close in early January, before the conversion.

We have also learned that the stores in Millbrook and Opelika will close early next year. Buyers for those stores haven’t been announced.

The Prattville Winn-Dixie has already reopened as a Piggly Wiggly.

The Winn-Dixie on Carter Hill Road in Montgomery is still in the process of being converted into an Aldi. Former Winn-Dixie stores in Selma and Auburn have already reopened as Aldi locations.

Montgomery-based Renfroe’s Market will be taking the place of the Eufaula Winn-Dixie, with a grand opening on December 17. It will become the ninth Renfroe’s location.

Winn-Dixie, which turned 100 years old this year, has had a longtime presence in our part of the state, though the number of stores has dwindled over the past 20 years. It has survived two bankruptcies.

It will have about 130 stores left following its exit from Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and most of Georgia, which had been announced in October. Dozens of remodels and new store projects are both planned and already underway in Florida and southern Georgia. Winn-Dixie says it will remain in the south Georgia cities of Brunswick, Folkston, Lake Park, St. Simons Island and Valdosta.

CLICK HERE to see the list of Winn-Dixie stores in Southeast and who is buying them