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Get ready, joe-holics: Starbucks on horizon

Nothing's official, but signs are the coffee and culture entrepreneur is coming.

By MICHAEL KRUSE
Published November 24, 2006

BROOKSVILLE - Pssssst. Earlier this month, there was a man in town, and he was from Starbucks, and he was asking questions. He wanted to know about the local rules for signage and tables and chairs being outside, city officials said this week, and he was interested in particular in the corner storefront in the still-empty strip center in the new Publix plaza.

Nothing has been signed.

Nothing is official.

But it's only a matter of time. Starbucks is scouting out the Hernando County seat.

Here's what company regional marketing specialist Mike Lenda said on the phone on Monday: "It's definitely on the radar."

Here's what he said on Tuesday: "We move pretty quickly around here."

"We're ready for 'em," city planning and zoning coordinator Pat Jobe said in her office.

The increasingly ubiquitous Seattle-spawned seller of coffee and culture has about 12,500 stores worldwide, in all 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., and 36 other countries from China to Chile. The company is slated to open about 2,400 new stores in the 2007 fiscal year and recently announced a goal of eventually having 40,000 stores all over the planet.

Pasco County already has five Starbucks locations. Tampa has 18.

But the only Starbucks presence to this point in Hernando is what amounts to a counter in the corner of the Target on U.S. 19. The quasi-'bucks shares a small area with a bright-lit snack spot that serves hot dogs and Icees.

The place has tables and chairs - but no booths, and no overstuffed, sink-in, stay-a-while seats, no newspaper rack with the New York Times.

Hernando continues to grow, though, and Brooksville, too, and that means stores like Starbucks are starting to see here some of the kinds of things they tend to like. They don't disclose stats with any specificity. But they involve rooftops and traffic patterns and median incomes.

The site of the new Publix is near the junction of State Road 50 and U.S. 41, which is near the new Lowe's, which is near the pending, high-priced population bursts in developments like Hernando Oaks, Majestic Oaks and Southern Hills.

So. Starbucks. Brooksville.

"I would assume they're going to be in there," Jobe said. "I don't see why they wouldn't."

"They're coming," city building official Lew Chandler said. "They're coming."

"They're franchising like crazy, and they've got a name, obviously," Brooksville Coldwell Banker broker Gary Schraut said. "It wouldn't surprise me."

"I think they'll do well over there," said Pat Crowley, the executive director of the Greater Hernando County Chamber of Commerce.

"I would anticipate it would be very popular here," said Mike McHugh, the director of the county's Office of Business Development. "It just seems like we're getting to the size - our county is - that these kinds of retailers and service providers are finding us attractive."

Rising Sun Cafe co-owner Sallie Rice said she wasn't bothered by the news. "What Starbucks is really good at is educating the public about coffee," she said. "People are going to go in and try it and learn about different coffees, and then come over here, too."

Chandler didn't seem to mind one way or the other. He said he's got this thing in his office. Maybe some folks have heard of it. It's called a coffee pot.

Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or 352 848-1434.

[Last modified November 23, 2006, 22:32:41]