Publix announces $28 million HQ upgrade, 700 jobs

When Publix built its gleaming green, three-story 320,000-square-foot headquarters off Polk Parkway in Lakeland in 2001 to house 800 corporate workers, the Lakeland-based grocery chain’s 650 stores across four states employed about 120,000 people and generated $15.3 billion in annual revenues.

Publix now operates 1,230 stores in seven states — from Key West to Spotsylvania, Va. — employs more than 193,000 people with $34.6 billion in annual revenues and its corporate campus near Lakeland Linder Airport houses more than 1,400 workers.