New Beginnings

Over the last several weeks a couple of new construction projects in the Brooksville city limits have really taken off. At the corner of Broad Street and MLK, a new Dairy Queen Restaurant is quickly taking shape. The slab has been poured and the walls are quickly going up on this new structure to replace the old Cottage Dinette that used to sit on this site. At the rate this new Dairy Queen is being constructed it will open just in time for the warm weather of late spring. If anyone has been watching, the old K-Mart building on SR 50 is almost completely demolished, with most of the debris already removed from the site. Bill Geiger, Development Director for the city of Brooksville, indicated that the developer has received all the city approvals and the permit for the new Publix store (slated for this site) should be issued in the very near future from the county. This new, larger Publix will replace the existing store which is just west of this site in the Brooksville Square Plaza. Everyone had wondered if this Publix location would survive with the opening of the WalMart just to the south on SR 41 several years ago. It is great to see the Publix corporation expanding their operations in Brooksville with a larger, more spacious facility. One sad point is the closing of Citrus Services (citrus packing plant) located at 26 E. Martin Luther King Blvd. After many, many years this company is quietly shutting down operations of their facility. Nothing has been mentioned about the future use of this site but I'm sure it will be very marketable since it is zoned industrial in the City of Brooksville. I wish the owners well in their future endeavors and they will be missed as an anchor business in our community.