Ollie’s opens on Volusia Square in Daytona. Here’s what it offers.

DAYTONA BEACH — Big Lots is closing its store here, but bargain hunters won’t have to wait long for a new place to look for deals.

Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, “America’s largest retailer of inventory and surplus merchandise,” will open Thursday at 9 a.m.October 10 at Wolusia Square. The shopping center at 2455 W. International Speedway Blvd. is located across the street from Volusia Marketplace, where Big Lots is closing this month.

Volusia Square also recently landed another new tenant, a Washington, D.C.-based operator of “Mediterranean-inspired” fast-casual restaurants called Cava, which is expected to open a location in Daytona Beach next year.

The new tenants are part of the remarkable transformation of the once-troubled Volusia Square since its sale to new operators three years ago.

“I’m very happy,” said Charley Gonzalez, owner of Stereotypes home audio store in Volusia Square. “I went to (Ollie’s) in Orange City with my wife. It was fun and the prices were really high.”

What is Ollie?

Founded in 1982 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Ollie’s Bargain Outlet Holdings Inc. operates 530 stores in 31 states and plans to add 50 more.

It offers a wide range of goods including household products, food, books, stationery, bed and bathroom products, floor coverings, toys and health and beauty products.

“With each new store, Ollie’s brings 50 to 60 new jobs to local communities,” the retailer says on its website.

The public company’s shares are listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the symbol OLLI. On August 29, the company reported that second-quarter earnings showed a 16.1% year-over-year increase in net income, a 12.4% increase in net sales and a 5.8% increase in same-store sales (revenues from open locations at least one year). This was the ninth consecutive quarter of comparable sales growth.

The company’s stock price closed at $97.39 per share on Oct. 4, down from just over $75 at the beginning of the year.

In Volusia Square, Ollie’s is taking over the spaces previously occupied by Bealls Outlet and Catherine’s Plus Sizes.

Ollie’s officials did not respond to requests for comment.

What is Cava?

Cava Group Inc. rents an end unit in a multi-tenant building where LensCrafters is located.

The restaurant takes over a 2,800-square-foot space vacated several years ago when Aspen Dental moved to Volusia Mall. Victoria Pugliano, property manager of Volusia Square, expects Cava to open in mid-2025. This will be the first chain in the Volusia-Flagler area.

Sarah Seale, spokeswoman for Cava Group, said: “We cannot confirm any information regarding the CAVA restaurant in Daytona Beach at this time…”

Seale added, however, that his restaurants typically employ 30 to 40 employees.

According to its latest quarterly report, Cava has 341 locations and plans to add 50 to 54 locations in the coming year.

Cava, founded in 2006 by three sons of Greek immigrants, has become the country’s largest operator of Mediterranean restaurants, according to a report by American University.

Cava Group is a public company whose shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CAVA. The company’s stock price closed Oct. 4 at $126.60 per share, down from $40.87 at the beginning of the year.

Jeremy Bowman of The Motley Fool, in an opinion piece published in USA Today in May, described Cava as having the makings of becoming “the industry’s next star.”

Once a struggling mall fills up

Ollie’s is the latest in a string of tenants Volusia Square has added since its $12.2 million purchase in August 2021 by New Jersey-based Lamar Companies and Colorado-based Real Capital Solutions.

The purchase did not include Home Depot or the K1 Speed indoor go-kart track, which are owned by other property owners.

Store openings since Lamar took over management of Volusia Square include The Restaurant Depot, Urban Air Adventure Park, Stereotypes, The Fish Tank Aquarium and Amped Fitness.

Lamar and Real Capital recouped some of their investment by selling the corner property that housed Pier 1 Imports to restaurant operators Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers in December 2023 for $3.25 million.

When it opened in July, the line for Raising Cane’s was long.

“We are currently over 90% leased,” Pugliano said. “That’s up from just 30%, or maybe less, when we took over.”

The signing of the contract with Cava leaves only three small store spaces available for rent. One of them is expected to be hired by a local cake and dessert company, Pugliano said.

If this space is leased, the available space would be just 3,920 square feet of the 193,923 square feet still owned by Lamar and Real Capital.

“It was a really good investment for us,” Pugliano said. She said Lamar and Real Capital spent more than $1 million on improvements to Volusia Square to repair roofs, repaint facades, repaint parking lots, redo landscaping and retention ponds, install LED lighting and replace monument signs.

Volusia Square was built in 1986. In its heyday, it was a dynamically developing center with an 8-screen cinema and big-box stores.

The AMC Volusia Square 8 movie theater closed in 2007. Consumer electronics retailer hhgregg, which was built on the site of the former movie theater, closed in 2017. The center lost more tenants in 2018 when Hobby Lobby, TJ Maxx, Ross Dress for Less and Bealls Shops has moved to the new Tomoka Town Center, three miles north in the growing LPGA area of Daytona Beach.

It was just the opportunity Lamar was looking for, Pugliano said of her company’s decision to partner with Real Capital to purchase Volusia Square.

“That’s what we like to do. We take care of distressed properties, give them a bit of TLC, attract tenants to them and bring them back to prosperity,” she said.

Moving to Plac Wolusia is “the best thing I’ve ever done”

Two years ago, Gonzalez moved Stereotypes to Volusia Square from its longtime location on Nova Road. “It was the best thing I ever did in my life,” he said.

Gonzalez described the center’s management team as “first-class.” He added that Raising Cane “is very busy.” Amped Fitness, which opened in January in the former TJ Maxx space, is also seeing strong demand, which helps other tenants.

“I started this business 42 years ago and I’m having more fun than ever,” Gonzalez said.