Whole Foods Comes to State Road 64, and Lakewood Ranch's North-End Errand Run Gets Redrawn

Until this fall, the nearest Whole Foods for Lakewood Ranch's northern villages, and for all of Manatee County, was the store near University Town Center in Sarasota. The Bradenton Herald reported that when Whole Foods announced its newest store.

That store is going up at the Marketplace at Heritage Harbour, the plaza at State Road 64 East and Interstate 75 that Costco opened in 2019. It finishes a list that took seven years to build. Whole Foods set Nov. 5 as its opening date there. Once it opens, the SR 64 and I-75 corner will have bulk shopping, a department store, sit-down dining, fast-casual counters and specialty groceries. For the north end of Lakewood Ranch, that adds up to a full errand loop that won't need a trip south.

The Store That Closes the Gap

Whole Foods set Nov. 5 as the opening date for its store at 7295 State Road 64 E. The company calls it Manatee County's first location and its 40th in Florida. The building covers 42,000 square feet, and the posted hours are 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day.

The opening was a long time coming. Whole Foods began developing the Bradenton store in 2024. The company says the shelves will carry more than 450 items sourced in Florida. To mark the opening, it also planned food donations and a monetary donation to Good Neighbors. That food pantry picks up surplus food from local Whole Foods stores on a regular schedule.

Whole Foods sits a stone's throw from the plaza entrance, according to the Herald's late-October openings roundup. That puts it right at the busiest corner of the busiest plaza on this stretch of SR 64.

Seven Years of Tenants Leading Up to a Grocer

The plaza grew around Costco one tenant at a time. Before Whole Foods arrived, the Marketplace at Heritage Harbour already held:

• Shopping: Costco, Target, Academy Sports + Outdoors and Hobby Lobby
• Sit-down dining: Miller's Ale House, LongHorn Steakhouse and Seasons 52
• Quick counters: Panda Express and Cava

A specialty grocer was the obvious gap in that list. Bulk staples came from Costco and household basics from Target, but the kind of shopping a Whole Foods handles still meant a drive to the UTC store. Filling that gap changes how the whole plaza gets used. Once Whole Foods is open, a Costco run, a Target stop and a grocery list can be done in one parking lot just off the interstate.

Chick-fil-A opened alongside it. The company's own announcement set service at 7283 State Road 64 East to begin Oct. 15 at 6 a.m. The Herald later confirmed that the long-awaited restaurant opened in October near the plaza entrance. Its local owner-operator, Jonathan Ith, previously ran the Chick-fil-A off State Road 70 in the Creekwood plaza. The two newest tenants now share the front of the plaza. Anyone coming in off SR 64 drives past both before reaching the older anchors.

The Corridor Fills In on Both Sides of the Plaza

The Marketplace isn't the only part of SR 64 that changed this fall. Two more openings along the same road bracket it.

Close by, Extreme Pizza opened its first Manatee County location at 7839 State Road 64 E., inside The Landing at Heritage Harbour plaza. The California-based chain serves gourmet pizzas plus subs, calzones, salads, appetizers and desserts.

Farther east, Chipotle Mexican Grill opened at 16680 State Road 64 E. in the Northchase Center. It has a drive-thru the company calls a Chipotlane, and the Herald reports that the Lakewood Ranch location is the chain's 1,500th Chipotlane store.

Put together, the fall's new arrivals on SR 64 look like this:

Three of the four are first-of-their-kind entries for this market: Manatee County's first Whole Foods, Extreme Pizza's first Manatee County location and a milestone drive-thru for Chipotle. National brands entering the county for the first time chose SR 64 near I-75 over other spots in Manatee County. That's the clearest sign yet of where the north end's commercial center has settled.

What's Planned Next at the Marketplace

More tenants are under construction near the new Whole Foods. The Herald names Lucky Goat, Mister O1 Extraordinary Pizza and Sephora among the stores being built nearby. Earlier coverage also lists Cold Stone Creamery and Qdoba Mexican Eats among the plaza's planned additions.

Sephora's plans go back to the start of the year. In February, the Herald reported that the beauty retailer had filed build-out paperwork for a 5,000-square-foot unit in the Marketplace.

The mix is worth a look. A coffee roaster, a pizzeria, an ice cream shop, a burrito counter and a beauty retailer are all short-visit stops. They're the kind of places you add to a grocery trip rather than make a separate trip for. Whole Foods will give people a reason to come, and the smaller tenants will give them reasons to stay a little longer.

Getting There in November

A new grocery anchor raises the stakes on the roads that lead to it, and this month several of them have crews on them.

The MyMPO Traffic Watch for the week of Oct. 25 lists a Manatee County watermain project at SR 64 and Upper Manatee River Road/Lakewood Ranch Boulevard. Work started Aug. 3 and is expected to finish in late November. Until then, the eastbound dual left-turn lanes from SR 64 onto Upper Manatee River Road may be closed, with lane shifts and detours possible anywhere in the intersection.

The same update lists a longer project to the east. FDOT is milling and resurfacing about 10.9 miles of SR 64 from west of C.R. 675 to Wingate Road. The work also includes drainage, curb and gutter, signs and pavement markings. FDOT scheduled the start for late fall and expects to finish in spring 2027, weather permitting. Drivers should expect daytime and overnight lane closures, possible lane shifts and uneven pavement during paving.

At the interchange itself, FDOT project 442097-1 is in construction. The $5.1 million project installs roadside electronic message signs, fiber, cameras and related equipment at the I-75 interchanges with SR 64 and SR 70. The project page lists completion in late 2026. This is signal and information equipment. The interchange isn't being rebuilt.

On a practical level, the Upper Manatee River Road work ends at about the same time the plaza's newest tenants settle into regular hours. The SR 64 resurfacing to the east will last through the busiest months of the year.

The Other End of Lakewood Ranch Boulevard

The north end wasn't the only part of the ranch to get a new anchor this fall. Life Time opened Oct. 12 at 5000 Lakewood Ranch Blvd. N. in Sarasota, the company's first athletic country club in the area, the Herald reported. The main building covers 86,000 square feet. Inside are yoga, Pilates and group fitness studios, a fitness floor, a cold plunge, a sauna and steam room, LifeSpa services, a café, co-work space and three indoor pickleball courts. Outside are 11 more pickleball courts, a leisure pool, a lap pool, a waterslide and an outdoor bar.

Lakewood Ranch Boulevard now runs between two new anchors. Life Time sits at the south end, and the north end reaches SR 64, about where the Heritage Harbour plaza and its new grocer draw traffic off I-75. Errands that used to point toward UTC will be able to go either way, depending on which end of the boulevard is closer to home.

Whether you're weighing how close a home is to the Marketplace at Heritage Harbour or how SR 64 traffic fits your routine this season, The Thompson Group can share what we're seeing across northern Lakewood Ranch. Schedule a private consultation and we'll go through the details that matter for your address.