JAVA UPDATE: AMELIA ISLAND STARBUCKS STAYING OPEN
Starbucks® has just made public its list of stores to close in the U.S. It appears that the Amelia Island-area Starbucks will not close, so for local java lovers, this is good news.
However, six Starbucks® in the Jacksonville area are among the 59 Florida ® stores that will be closing. (Amazingly, the Jacksonville area will still have around 30 Starbucks® after the closings …who knew there were so many Starbucks® in JAX?)
In the U.S., California tops the list for the highest number of Starbucks® to close, with Florida second in closings, followed by Texas. These are company-owned stores. According to the company's web site, “Starbucks® does not franchise operations and has no plans to franchise in the foreseeable future.”
The java giant had announced earlier this month that the 600 stores they would shut down were mainly those opened during their latest expansion in 2006 – many of the newest Starbucks®.
The company's stores are relatively new to the scene in the Amelia Island area, with the first Starbucks® opening within Target in Yulee in 2006, (located in the Shoppes at the Amelia Island Concourse). In 2007, the free-standing Starbucks® opened on Amelia Island (Sadler Road), and lastly the Starbucks® (with drive-through service, too) opened in the Shoppes at the Amelia Concourse (the same shopping plaza with Target and Home Depot, on A1A in Yulee).
Perhaps since Starbucks® was new to Nassau County, Florida, considered one of Florida's “rural” counties with great potential for future growth, it was not one of their over-saturated markets. The A1A corridor in Yulee, Florida (the road leading from Interstate 95 to Amelia Island), is often referred to as “the gateway to Amelia”, where much of the area's new growth for the next decade or two will be concentrated. Commercial development has been bustling along this corridor leading to Amelia Island. The Shoppes at the Amelia Island Concourse is the largest shopping plaza in Nassau County, Florida (opened in 2006).
For those interested, see the full list of 600 stores closing, by clicking this link from the Starbuck's web site http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/USStoreClosureInfo.pdf.
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About the author -- W. B. Lawson has lived on Amelia Island fourteen years and writes tourism, lifestyle, and real estate articles.