Pull into the parking lot at Mills Drive and 88th Street this month and something feels off, even if you can't immediately name it. The Publix is gone. The bookstore moved. There's a line of cars for a Mediterranean bowl chain that didn't exist here six months ago. If you've shopped this stretch of Kendall for any length of time, the center feels like it's mid-sentence, and it is.
The easy read is decline: another aging strip mall losing tenants one by one. The actual story is closer to the opposite. The Palms at Town & Country is changing anchor by anchor, with a grocery rebuild and new tenants reshaping the property. Understanding that difference matters if you're the one driving here every week wondering when your grocery store comes back.
The grocery gap is the one everyone feels
According to AOL's report on the closure, the Publix at 8250 Mills Drive had been open since 1985, a fixture through four decades of Kendall grocery runs. It closed for good on January 17, 2026, not for a remodel but for a full teardown and rebuild on the same site. Publix hasn't published an exact reopening date. Typical rebuilds of this kind run a year to eighteen months once demolition starts, per that same coverage, which would put a reopening somewhere between early and mid-2027. A Hoodline report on Publix's South Florida rebuild pipeline described this particular project as needing a couple of years to bring a full-service grocery back to the property, which stretches the window closer to 2028. Either way, this isn't a short gap.
In the meantime, Publix itself pointed shoppers toward four nearby locations: Kendall Mall on SW 107th Avenue, Market Square on SW 104th Street, Higate Square on SW 88th Street, and the Crossings Shopping Village on SW 112th Street. If your Pub Sub habit runs through Mills Drive, one of those four is your stand-in for a while.
The Toys "R" Us box finally has a tenant
According to Hoodline, the old Toys "R" Us building on the property has sat dark since June 2018, which means it went eight years without a single tenant before Kimco Realty, the center's owner, signed a lease with Tesla. The automaker is turning the 45,000-plus square foot box into a showroom and service center, expected to open in late 2026. Kimco's leasing representative Katie Wycoff called it a distinctive addition that underscores the property's strength, which is corporate language for what residents will actually notice: the biggest dead space in the parking lot is finally getting used again.
What already landed this year
Two changes are done and open, not pending.
According to Miami New Times, Cava opened its first Kendall location in mid-April 2026, moving into the 2,720 square foot space that Bolay left behind. It's the chain's fifth South Florida outpost after Hialeah, Plantation, Brickell, and Aventura, and social video posted after the opening showed lines still running 35 minutes deep, a wait one visitor called an improvement over previous trips.
According to Caplin News, Barnes & Noble is also new to this specific spot, even though it isn't new to Kendall. The bookstore had operated out of a much larger West Kendall building for more than 30 years before relocating to a smaller footprint inside the Palms at Town & Country. Longtime visitors at the closing weekend wondered aloud how the store would fit into what looked, from the outside, like a much smaller space. The store reopened at its new Mills Drive location in October 2025. An AOL report also noted that a 3,684 square foot Starbucks opened the same month, in the spot a Burger King used to occupy.
Two more should be open by the time you read this
An AOL report said that, as of this summer, two additional tenants were slated to open at the Palms: Yoga Joint, a Sunrise-based fitness studio taking a 5,360 square foot space next to J.Crew Factory, and Pura Vida Miami, a 3,425 square foot cafe serving bowls, smoothies, and coffee. Both were announced for a summer 2026 opening. If you haven't spotted them on a recent trip, they're worth watching for on your next one.
Here's a quick snapshot of where things stand as of this writing:
| Business | Space | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Publix (rebuild) | Full store | Closed since Jan. 17, 2026; reopening estimated 2027-2028 |
| Tesla | 45,000+ sq ft | Signed lease; opening late 2026 |
| Cava | 2,720 sq ft | Open since mid-April 2026 |
| Barnes & Noble | Relocated | Open since October 2025 |
| Starbucks | 3,684 sq ft | Open since October 2025 |
| Yoga Joint | 5,360 sq ft | Slated for summer 2026 |
| Pura Vida Miami | 3,425 sq ft | Slated for summer 2026 |
The dining scene stretching past the mall itself
Two blocks away, on SW 88th Street, the same appetite for reinvention shows up outside Kimco's property line.
According to the Kendall Gazette, Kung Fu Chicken is set to open this fall at 12536 SW 88th Street, its fourth South Florida location after outposts at Florida International University, Little Havana, and Miami Beach. The Taiwanese fast-casual concept comes from Chef Yu Bi and her husband, Dr. Tingjun Lei, who met while studying hospitality at FIU. Chef Yu Bi has said the Kendall opening carries personal weight because the neighborhood is where much of their Miami story started. The Kendall menu will include a Classic Chicken Sandwich and a lineup of Kung Fu Wings with house-made sauces.
A few doors down, Miami New Times reported that Lala's Burgers opened in December 2025 at 13750 SW 88th Street, in the space that used to house Fujiya Japanese Restaurant. It's the standalone version of a concept that began as a Tuesday pop-up inside Apocalypse BBQ, the barbecue spot Jeff and Laura "Lala" Budnechky started from their backyard in 2020. Apocalypse BBQ itself had already outgrown its original 43-seat location, expanding to a 190-seat space at Kendall Village Shopping Center in March 2025. Lala's now runs as a 70-seat, full-service spinoff with its own craft beer list built around South Florida breweries like Tripping Animals and Wynwood Brewing Company.
A longer-term proposal for the property
Here's some context for the changes above. According to The Real Deal, Kimco Realty, a publicly traded REIT that owns roughly 528 properties nationwide, acquired the majority stake in the Palms at Town & Country in 2021 when Weingarten Realty Investors merged into the company. In 2023, Kimco filed plans with Miami-Dade County to replace the Kohl's building with two 12-story apartment towers totaling 630 units and roughly 35,000 additional square feet of retail. That proposal was described at the time as an early-stage vision, and there's been no public update on its timeline since. The proposal would add residential density alongside retail, a model similar to what the company has already built at Dania Pointe in Broward County.
Seen together, the Publix demolition, the Tesla lease, the Cava opening, and the fitness and cafe additions show how the property is changing over several years. The turnover feels chaotic from the driver's seat because you're living through it one closed storefront at a time. The Publix reopening remains estimated for 2027-2028.
For anyone who calls this stretch of Kendall home, the practical takeaway is simple. The disruption is real, but it isn't a sign the center is fading. The grocery rebuild and new tenant openings are reshaping this corner of Mills Drive. There may be a few more changes before the Publix reopens, while the longer-term mixed-use proposal remains early-stage, with no public timeline update.
If you're watching how a neighborhood evolves this closely, whether you're weighing a move within Kendall or just trying to keep track of where to park, Pam Mayers and the Mayers Group follow these local shifts as part of the job. Let's Connect. Schedule a Consultation whenever a question about the market here comes up.
