Publix Now Owns 38% of Its Stores, Up From 14% in 2009

Publix is no longer just Florida’s biggest grocery tenant. By the end of 2025 the Lakeland-based chain owned the real estate under 550 of its 1,432 stores, 38 percent, up from just 14 percent in 2009. The shift has been driven by a buying spree that has topped $400 million since 2023, with South Florida absorbing most of the checks.

Why it matters

For developers and shopping-center owners, Publix is now a competing bidder, not just an anchor tenant. A grocery-anchored center with a Publix lease can no longer be priced as a simple cash-flow play, because the tenant itself may step in and buy the asset before an outside investor can close. That shrinks the pool of willing sellers and puts a floor under pricing for the centers that do trade.

The pattern also reshapes where new supply gets built. Publix has been buying land outright for new stores, not just existing centers, and it is doing so partly to box out competition from Amazon, Kroger and other out-of-state grocers chasing the same South Florida sites. A developer planning a grocery-anchored project now has to assume Publix wants the parcel too, and has the cash to move without a financing contingency.

The numbers

• 550 of 1,432 Publix locations are owned outright as of the end of 2025, versus 144 of 1,014 stores in 2009.
• More than $400 million spent buying out landlords since 2023, per Commercial Observer’s reporting.
• Recent South Florida deals: $83.25 million for Airpark Plaza near Miami International Airport in September, $24 million for Aberdeen Square near Boynton Beach in June, and $83 million for Polo Club Shops in Boca Raton in December 2025.
• Those three deals alone put more than 400,000 square feet of retail space in Publix’s own hands instead of a landlord’s.

What’s next

Watch which shopping-center owners sell to Publix next rather than to an institutional buyer. Each deal pulls another grocery-anchored asset out of the investment market for good, since Publix buys to hold, not to trade. We covered the most recent example, the Airpark Plaza purchase, in detail.

For developers eyeing a site near an existing Publix, expect the grocer to be a bidder on adjacent parcels too, especially where it has signaled plans for a second nearby store, as it has in Pembroke Pines and Oakland Park. For more on where capital is moving across the region, see our South Florida market coverage.