Seven years after its anchor opened, the shopping center at Interstate 75 and State Road 64 East keeps adding smaller and smaller storefronts.
Costco anchored the Marketplace at Heritage Harbour when it opened in 2019. Since then, the Bradenton Herald reports, the plaza has added Target, Academy Sports + Outdoors, Hobby Lobby, Miller's Ale House, LongHorn Steakhouse, Seasons 52, Panda Express and Cava. That first wave was mostly big boxes and sit-down chains, the kind of places you plan a trip around. This fall's openings and the leases behind them look different. Most are a few thousand square feet or less: coffee, juice, ice cream, pizza, a burrito counter. A plaza filling in with tenants that size is built for short, frequent stops, and that's what's taking shape on SR 64 East.
Whole Foods Brings the Grocery Run
The biggest piece is the grocery store. Whole Foods Market set Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, as the opening date for its first Manatee County store, a 42,000-square-foot building at 7295 State Road 64 East. The company lists daily hours of 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. According to the Whole Foods announcement, it's the chain's 40th store in Florida. Before it, the closest Whole Foods for Manatee County was the one near University Town Center in Sarasota.
The store's local ties showed in its opening plans. The Herald reported that more than 450 items on the shelves are sourced in Florida, and that the company planned food and monetary donations to Good Neighbors, a food pantry that collects surplus food from local Whole Foods stores. For opening morning, Tampa Bay Beacons reported coffee from Buddy Brew and cold-pressed juice from Urban Remedy. The first 300 customers in line would get a limited-edition Bradenton tote and a Secret Saver coupon worth up to $100.
A grocery store changes how often a shopping center gets used. People stock up at Costco on a schedule, but they pick up produce or dinner whenever they need it. Whole Foods brings that kind of frequent stop to the same parking field as the warehouse club.
Chick-fil-A Starts the Day Earlier
The other new arrival is already serving. Chick-fil-A opened at 7283 State Road 64 East, near the plaza entrance, in October. The Herald's preview put the opening on Oct. 15, with hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Owner-operator Jonathan Ith isn't new to the area. He previously ran the Chick-fil-A in the Creekwood plaza off State Road 70.
Those hours set the plaza's new outer edges:
- 6 a.m.: Chick-fil-A opens, Monday through Saturday
- 8 a.m.: Whole Foods opens, daily
- 9 p.m.: Whole Foods closes
- 10 p.m.: Chick-fil-A closes, Monday through Saturday
A morning drive-thru and an evening grocery store stretch a shopping center that used to run on errand hours. The tenants lined up next make that stretch longer.
The Next Wave Is Small
Here's how this year's arrivals compare with what has signed on to follow them. Square footage comes from Herald reporting at the time each lease or plan became public.
| Business | Space | Location in the plaza | Reported |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whole Foods Market | 42,000 sq. ft. | 7295 SR 64 E. | Oct. 2026 |
| Sephora | 5,000 sq. ft., standalone | Southeast area of the plaza | Feb. 2026 |
| Mister O1 Extraordinary Pizza | 2,381 sq. ft. | Near Hobby Lobby | Sept. 2025 |
| Qdoba Mexican Eats | 1,875 sq. ft. | Near Whole Foods | Sept. 2025 |
| Cold Stone Creamery | 1,588 sq. ft. | Next to Mister O1 | Sept. 2025 |
| Lucky Goat Coffee Co. | Unit 104 | 7227 SR 64 E., beside Encore Nails | Dec. 2025 |
Put the numbers side by side. Cold Stone's unit is less than 4% of the Whole Foods footprint. The three restaurant leases with published sizes add up to 5,844 square feet combined, roughly a seventh of the grocery store. Even Sephora, the largest tenant on the list after Whole Foods, is a 5,000-square-foot standalone store. Edgewood Properties, the plaza's developer, markets the whole Costco-anchored project at more than 500,000 square feet of retail. The big boxes are already in place. What's arriving now is the small stuff around them.
The Herald named more tenants in May 2026. It placed Fresh Kitchen and U-Yee Sushi & Grill II in a building north of LongHorn Steakhouse and Pure Green Juice Bar in a building next to Whole Foods. When Lucky Goat's lease was reported in December 2025, its neighbors were listed as Encore Nails, a future smoothie cafe and Qdoba. Taken together, the plaza's next layer is coffee, juice, sushi, bowls, pizza and ice cream. These are short stops, and you can make one without planning a whole trip around Costco.
What's Planned Behind the Storefronts
A plaza built for frequent short visits pairs naturally with people living close by, and Edgewood's plans account for that. Its property page describes luxury residential units planned behind the shopping center. In October 2025, the Bradenton Herald reported that the leasing plan at the time showed 350 luxury residential units, a dog park, and three future parcels at the south end of Target's parking lot. Those figures come from that 2025 plan, and Edgewood updated its site plans online in late October 2026.
The direction is clear, though. Plans now set daily-use food and retail next to future homes, on land that started out as parking around a warehouse club.
Getting There This Month
More short trips means more time on SR 64, and the roads near the plaza have several projects running this season. Here's what the MyMPO Traffic Watch for the week of Oct. 25, 2026 lists, roughly in order of how close each one is to the plaza:
- SR 64 at Upper Manatee River Road and Lakewood Ranch Boulevard. Manatee County's watermain project, which started Aug. 3, was expected to run until late November. Expect eastbound dual left-turn lane closures from SR 64 onto Upper Manatee River Road.
- The I-75 interchanges at SR 64 and SR 70. FDOT is installing arterial dynamic message signs, fiber, cameras and related equipment, with completion listed for late 2026.
- Eastbound SR 70 before I-75. A temporary right-lane closure for utility work was expected from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. over the weeks following the Oct. 25 update.
- SR 64 from west of C.R. 675 to Wingate Road. FDOT planned to start milling and resurfacing this roughly 10.9-mile stretch in late fall, with temporary daytime and overnight lane closures, possible lane shifts and uneven lanes. Completion is expected in spring 2027, weather permitting.
If you're coming from the south, the Lena Road connection between SR 64 and SR 70 opened in 2025, but it isn't a direct straight-through route. Your Observer reported in September 2026 that the larger $32 million Lena Road project is underfunded. Design for the landfill intersection is expected in early 2027, and the full improvements might not be finished until 2030, if they're funded. For now, the I-75 and SR 64 interchange remains the plaza's front door, and this month it comes with lane closures on the approaches.
At Megan Finke Group, we keep track of how corridors like SR 64 East change, from a new grocery store to the homes planned behind it. If you want to talk about what that growth means for a home near Heritage Harbour or Lakewood Ranch, Schedule a Consultation and we'll walk through it with you.
