Key store tops other Publix locations

Mayor Jim Brown contacted Publix corporate officials about the possibility of a “topping off” event to celebrate the roof going up on its new store. Representatives of the 1,052-store chain agreed — but told him that they had never done a topping-off event before.

“It had always been low-key,” Brown said of other stores.

But, this Key doesn’t do low-key, and a topping-off celebration has been scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Thursday, July 12.

Town Manager David Bullock told the Longboat Key Town Commission that both Publix and CVS are ahead of schedule.

He shared two additional pieces of Publix news:

It turns out the flooding outside of Town Hall wasn’t the result of an early Tropical Storm Debby deluge.
Hawkins Construction Inc., the project contractor, was pumping water out of the site, but pipes hadn’t yet been installed. Water was already subsiding by the end of the workshop.

Town Manager David Bullock said that he signed off on a request, with which he struggled, from Publix for night construction that would run from 3:30 a.m. to 7 a.m. July 2 to July 3 and July 5 to July 6 to allow it to do an internal pour for its floor.

But, he also pointed out another success in the project: No noise complaints since construction began.