Walmart has filed plans for a nearly 48,000-square-foot Neighborhood Market grocery store at 6350 Uihlein Road in Lakewood Ranch, according to Manatee County building records.
The grocery-focused store would sit near State Road 70 East in one of the community's fastest-growing corridors, where new residential villages are ramping up. Final site plans show more than 200 parking spaces.
The property was previously approved for a big-box store.
Second Neighborhood Market in a year
The Lakewood Ranch location is the second Walmart Neighborhood Market the Arkansas-based company has planned for Manatee County in roughly a year. In 2025, Walmart filed paperwork for a store at 6100 Buckeye Road in the Artisan Palmetto Retail West plaza off Artisan Lakes Parkway in Palmetto, as the Bradenton Herald reported on Aug. 30, 2025.
That Palmetto store was described as the sixth Walmart-brand location in Manatee County at the time.
The nearest existing Walmart Neighborhood Market to the planned Lakewood Ranch site is at 4536 53rd Ave. E. in Bradenton. Walmart Supercenters operate at 5315 Cortez Road W., 6225 State Road 64 E. and 5810 Ranch Lake Blvd. in Bradenton, plus 508 10th St. E. in Palmetto.
Growing demand on SR-70 East
Lakewood Ranch ranked No. 1 among multi-generational master-planned communities in RCLCO Real Estate Consulting's mid-year 2026 survey, logging 1,035 new-home sales through June 2026, according to a July 30 press release from Schroeder-Manatee Ranch. The community now serves more than 80,000 residents across more than 35,000 acres in Manatee and Sarasota counties.
New villages are expected to open in Sarasota County portions of the community in 2027, and the eastern section along SR-70 continues to see significant residential expansion from builders including PulteGroup and Taylor Morrison.
Walmart Neighborhood Markets are smaller, grocery-focused stores the chain launched in 1998. More than 670 operate nationwide.
No construction start date or opening timeline has been announced, and Walmart has not issued a public statement about the Lakewood Ranch project beyond what appears in county records.
