For six years, the lot beside Mango Marley's at 32nd Street and Highway 98 sat empty. Now there's equipment on it, and Mexico Beach residents who have spent the better part of a decade budgeting extra drive time for milk and bread are paying attention. Seaside Marketplace broke ground in January 2026, and it's on track to become the first full-service grocery store in town since Hurricane Michael wiped out the last one in 2018.

That's the headline everyone already has. The part worth understanding is what kind of store this actually will be, and the one signal that will tell you it's close to opening long before anyone posts a ribbon-cutting date.

Six years of the Piggly Wiggly run

Since October 2018, a trip for groceries in Mexico Beach has meant leaving Mexico Beach. Residents lean on the Dollar General for staples and drive roughly 20 minutes to Duren's Piggly Wiggly in Port St. Joe, or further out to Panama City for a bigger selection. Ford Hebner, a Mexico Beach visitor quoted by WJHG when the project was first announced, described the routine plainly: a list, a run to Dollar General, and a longer trip into Port St. Joe or Panama when that doesn't cover it.

That's not a complaint about inconvenience so much as a description of how a town without a grocery store organizes its week. Mexico Beach Mayor Richard Wolff put it the same way at the January groundbreaking, saying he personally drives to Panama City or Port St. Joe depending on what he needs, and that the need for something local has been real for a long time.

What's actually going into the ground

Seaside Marketplace is being built on the northern side of town, at the corner of 32nd Street and Highway 98, right next to Mango Marley's. The project is backed by the Duran family, who also own Piggly Wiggly in Port St. Joe. Contractors told WMBB the build would take around 10 months from the January groundbreaking, with a target of wrapping by the end of 2026.

Do the math from where we sit today, at the end of August 2026, and that puts the project roughly seven to eight months into a projected 10-month build. That's useful context if you drive past the site and see steel or framing rather than a finished storefront. It doesn't mean the timeline has slipped. It means you're looking at a project in the middle of its build window, not behind it.

What it does mean is that an opening date this fall is plausible but not yet confirmed by anyone involved. Nobody quoted in the reporting on this project, not the Duran family, not Mayor Wolff, not City Administrator Mell Smigielski, has put a specific calendar date on an opening. The projections so far have all been in months, not dates. That distinction matters if you're the kind of resident who wants to plan around this rather than just hope for it.

The Piggly Wiggly connection is the part worth understanding

Here's the detail that changes how you should think about this store. Seaside Marketplace isn't a new, independent grocery chain choosing Mexico Beach as a market to enter. It's an extension of a business the Duran family already runs 20 minutes down Highway 98. Reporting on the project's planning and zoning approval noted that current plans call for the Port St. Joe Piggly Wiggly to function as a kind of warehouse, with product transferred over to keep Seaside Marketplace stocked.

That's a meaningfully different model than a big-box chain building a new location from a regional distribution center. It suggests a store whose assortment will track closely with what's already moving through the Piggly Wiggly in Port St. Joe: the staples, the produce, the basics that cover a weekly list, rather than the wider specialty selection you'd find at a Publix or a larger supermarket in Panama City. Mayor Wolff's framing at the groundbreaking supports this read. His comment wasn't about variety or upscale amenities. It was about not having to drive out of town for what you need, which is a lower bar than a full-scale supermarket and a more realistic one for a town this size.

None of that is a knock on the project. A local store solving the actual daily-use case, built by people who already know how to run a grocery business in this exact corner of the Panhandle, is arguably a better bet for staying open than a bigger, flashier concept trying to prove out a new location. It's just a different thing than "Mexico Beach is getting a supermarket," and knowing the difference will save you a wasted trip if you're expecting a wide aisle of specialty goods on day one.

The signal to actually watch for

If you want to know when this store is close to opening, don't wait for a press release. Watch for hiring.

When WMBB covered the groundbreaking in January, the reporting was direct about sequencing: once the project gets closer to wrapping, the Duran family will start looking to staff the store. That's the practical tell. A grocery store doesn't post cashier and stocker openings six months before it can use them. Job listings tied to Seaside Marketplace, whether through the Duran family's existing channels or posted locally in Mexico Beach and Port St. Joe, are a better real-time indicator of an actual opening window than anything on a construction sign.

If you're the kind of resident who checks in on this periodically, that's the thing worth checking. Not the parking lot. Not the framing. The job postings.

What's already covering the gap

While the build finishes out, the same options that have carried Mexico Beach for six years are still the ones in play:

• Dollar General, for the staples and quick runs
• Duren's Piggly Wiggly in Port St. Joe, about 20 minutes away, for a fuller weekly shop
• Panama City, for the bigger chain stores and wider selection, at the cost of more drive time

None of that changes until Seaside Marketplace actually opens its doors. What changes between now and then is just how close that day is, and the clearest way to track it is watching who's hiring, not watching what's being poured.

Mexico Beach has spent six years defined partly by what it lost in October 2018 and partly by what's slowly come back since. A grocery store built by a family that already runs one in the next town over isn't a dramatic transformation. It's a practical piece of daily life returning to where it used to be, on the Duran family's timeline rather than anyone else's.

If you're watching this project because you're weighing what it says about the town, not just your grocery list, that's a conversation worth having directly. Compass & Key works Port St. Joe, Mexico Beach, and the rest of Gulf County every day, and we're glad to talk through what projects like this one actually mean for a property or a neighborhood you're paying attention to. Let's Connect.