If you've spent any time in a St. Johns County Facebook group since spring, you've probably seen two different grocery rumors about the same stretch of road. In May 2026, county planners were reviewing site plans for a 30,000-square-foot grocery store on East Peyton Parkway, sized to match Sprouts Farmers Market almost exactly. Two months later, a national developer announced the confirmed anchor tenant for a shopping center in that same corridor. It wasn't Sprouts. It was Whole Foods.
That correction matters if you live anywhere near Durbin Park, because the corridor along County Road 210 and Interstate 95 has been under some form of construction for years now, and it's easy to lose track of what's confirmed, what's still a rumor, and what already has a working parking lot. Here's where things actually stand as of this month.
Two Grocery Stories, One Address
Regency Centers, the company behind the Whole Foods announcement, calls its project The Berkeley at Durbin Park and places it on East Peyton Parkway next to UF Health Durbin Park. Site plans for the project cross several parcels owned by Durbin Creek National LLC, an entity tied to Gate Petroleum. That's the same landowner named two months earlier in county filings for the Sprouts-sized grocery proposal, which was also described as sitting on East Peyton Parkway across from UF Health Durbin Park.
Whether that means the two proposals are the same project that landed a different anchor, or two separate grocery-anchored centers taking shape within sight of each other, the county hasn't clarified and Sprouts never confirmed the earlier speculation. Either way, the practical picture is the same for anyone nearby: a stretch of road that had exactly one full-service grocery option a year ago, the Walmart Supercenter at 845 Durbin Pavilion Drive, is about to get real grocery competition within a few hundred yards of it.
For scale, that Walmart Supercenter runs about 195,000 square feet. The incoming Whole Foods is planned at roughly 30,000 square feet, about a sixth the size, closer to a neighborhood grocer than a warehouse-scale anchor. Regency says it expects to break ground in the fourth quarter of 2026, with TJ Maxx, Firebirds Wood Fired Grill, and Shake Shack rounding out the tenant list at the same center.
Walmart itself isn't standing still. The retailer filed a permit in February 2026 to add about 9,000 square feet to the existing Supercenter, dedicated to online grocery pickup and delivery capacity, with the county's Development Review Committee taking up the expansion in early March. That's not a store losing ground to new competition. It's a store trying to keep pace with a corridor that keeps growing.
Here's the fastest way to sort confirmed from rumored right now:
| Project | Status as of August 2026 | Expected Timing |
|---|---|---|
| The Berkeley at Durbin Park (Whole Foods, TJ Maxx, Firebirds, Shake Shack) | Announced by Regency Centers, not yet under construction | Groundbreaking Q4 2026 |
| Grocery center matching Sprouts' footprint, same corridor | Reviewed by the county in June 2026, tenant never confirmed | No date announced |
| Home2 Suites by Hilton, Fountains East | Under construction | Early 2027 |
| Fountains East Town Square (Island Wing Co., DaVinci's Pizza, Toasted Yolk, Wicked Cookies) | Groundbreaking reported December 2024; still listed as planned in February 2026 | No date announced |
| Walmart Supercenter online pickup expansion | Permitted, under county review | No date announced |
| Smalls Sliders, off CR 210 | Broke ground March 2026 | No date announced |
| ZEN Pho and Noodles, 1385 St. Johns Parkway | Announced January 2026 | Described as opening shortly |
| Egg Bred, Fruit Cove | Open | Serving now |
The Hotel the Interchange Didn't Have Until Now
For years, the CR 210 and I-95 interchange had zero hotel rooms despite sitting at the center of one of the fastest-growing pockets of the county. That's changing with a 137-room Home2 Suites by Hilton now under construction in the Fountains East phase of The Fountains at St. Johns, the first hotel ever built at that intersection. The project carries an $18.7 million cost, with Cerris Builders as contractor alongside developer Cross Regions Group and a hospitality investment partner. Completion is expected in early 2027.
For residents, a hotel at that specific corner means something concrete: family visiting during a move, a graduation, or the holidays will finally have somewhere to stay inside the county line, instead of driving back toward the St. Johns Town Center area or the hotel clusters near I-295.
Where the Walkable Part Finally Shows Up
The same Fountains East phase includes a 35,000-square-foot town square with signed tenants Island Wing Co., DaVinci's Pizza, Toasted Yolk, and Wicked Cookies, along with St. Johns Aesthetics and Wellness Center rounding out the non-restaurant space. The developer has described the layout as fully walkable, with no roads cutting between the buildings, so someone staying at the Home2 Suites or living in one of the roughly 450 apartments planned across the Fountains East parcels could walk straight from their door to a restaurant patio.
As of February 2026, county records still listed the town square as planned rather than open, so it's not ready to walk into yet. But four of the buildings were already 80 percent leased back when Cross Regions broke ground on the hotel in December 2024, which puts this phase ahead of most of the rest of the corridor in terms of committed tenants.
What You Can Actually Walk Into Right Now
While the larger anchors are still under construction, a few smaller restaurants have already landed or are close. Smalls Sliders, the Louisiana-based chain that operates out of prefabricated buildings it calls cans and counts former New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees among its investors, broke ground in March 2026 on an 800-square-foot drive-thru off County Road 210, directly across from The Fountains at St. Johns. The location skips indoor seating entirely in favor of a drive-thru window and an outdoor patio.
A few miles north, ZEN Pho and Noodles, a Gainesville-founded pan-Asian mini-chain, announced in January 2026 that it's taking over the former Oola Mala Hot Pot & Sushi space at 1385 St. Johns Parkway. And in Fruit Cove, Egg Bred has already opened its doors, serving craft breakfast sandwiches and hash browns to a stretch of the county that has historically had fewer casual breakfast options than the beach side.
None of these smaller openings are tied to the big Durbin Park announcements. They're happening because the population base along CR 210 has grown enough that faster-moving chains can justify a location on their own schedule, without waiting for a master-planned town square to finish construction.
Why the Order Matters
Line the pieces up and a pattern shows itself. The hospital came first, with Ascension St. Vincent's opening its 150,000-square-foot St. Johns County campus back in 2022. Housing followed, with apartments and single-family communities filling in around it. Big-box retail came next, anchored by that original Walmart. Only now, years into the corridor's build-out, are grocery competition, a hotel, and an actual walkable dining district arriving at close to the same time.
That sequence is typical of a fast-growing corridor. Infrastructure and healthcare lead, rooftops follow, and the restaurants and lifestyle retail that make a place feel finished show up last, once a developer is confident there are enough people nearby to fill every seat. If you've lived near Durbin Park and wondered why it took this long to get a sit-down restaurant that isn't attached to a big-box parking lot, that's the actual reason. The corridor wasn't overlooked. It was working through the pieces in the order that made the numbers work for whoever was writing the check.
If you're keeping an eye on how this stretch of St. Johns County keeps changing, or you just want a local perspective the next time a new sign goes up on East Peyton Parkway, Campanaro Group tracks this corridor closely. Contact us anytime with questions about what's actually happening near you.
