Trader Joe’s will open a new Orlando, Florida, store Thursday, Nov. 5, at 1444 N. Alafaya Trail east of the city, near the University of Central Florida.
The Monrovia, California-based grocer announced the new location on its website, inviting customers to an 8 a.m. grand opening celebration with “Captain Randy and Crew.”
The opening appears to be part of a broader Central Florida push. Trader Joe’s confirmed to Orlando television station WESH 2 that three locations are set to open in the region: the Alafaya Trail store, another in Kissimmee and a third in Maitland.
A fourth site also may be in the works, according to local reports. Several sources say that a permit application has been filed with the city of Orlando for a Trader Joe’s in the former Burlington space at 3001 E. Colonial Drive in Colonial Marketplace, next to Orlando Fashion Square. The filing describes an interior tenant fit-out of the existing building into a Trader Joe’s store, with new partitions, fixtures, flooring, ceilings, lighting and mechanical work; the permit is open and expires in April 2027. Trader Joe’s has not confirmed that location; if it moves forward, local reports indicate it would be the sixth store in the metro Orlando area, in what observers are calling the region’s greatest Trader Joe’s expansion yet. The project would also return a vacant big-box space to use, continuing grocers’ pattern of backfilling former anchors into traffic drivers.
The Alafaya Trail store is the third Trader Joe’s in Orange County, joining existing stores in Winter Park and the Dr. Phillips area on Sand Lake Road, according to local reports.