What Florence Wants
Is Costco Coming to Florence SC? The Bulk Retail Mirage
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Florence Wants
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Florence, SC & the Pee Dee Region
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What Florence Wants
Florence is home to two hospital systems, a growing medical workforce, and — according to its own economic development office — the title of "medical hub of the Pee Dee Region."
So why does getting a Trader Joe's produce haul or a Costco membership run mean a 90-minute drive?
In October 2025, the Post and Courier's Pee Dee bureau ran a reader poll asking Florence what grocery store should come next. Nearly 1,000 people voted. The results:
Plus scattered support for Kroger, Lowes Foods, Fresh Market, Ingles and Food City.
~90 min
to nearest Trader Joe's & Costco (Myrtle Beach area)
~75 min
to nearest Whole Foods (Columbia)
2024 →
poll favored Publix — now opening in the area
This wasn't Florence's first retail wish-list poll, either — a 2024 version of the same survey favored Publix, which is now opening locations in the area, showing these polls can actually predict what gets built.
Here's where the original "food desert" framing needs a fact-check before it runs: Florence isn't without any bulk retail. There is a Sam's Club already operating in the city.
The real, more precise gap isn't "no bulk retail" — it's the specific brands residents say they want most and don't have: Trader Joe's, Costco, and Whole Foods, each requiring a drive of well over an hour.
That's a narrower, more accurate — and more useful — story than "Florence has nothing," and it's the story we're telling.
Florence County's healthcare sector alone employs more than 13,500 people, spread across three major institutions:
517
beds at McLeod Regional Medical Center
396
beds at MUSC Health Florence Medical Center
50,000+
patients served by HopeHealth across five counties
That's a large, relatively high-income, retail-attractive workforce concentrated in one county — the kind of demographic profile that national chains typically use to justify a new location.
Whether site-selection teams at Trader Joe's or Costco have ever formally evaluated Florence, and what held them back if they did, is a question we haven't yet gotten answered on the record. That's a reporting gap, not an assumption we're willing to fill in for them.
Until we get that on the record, this piece treats "why not Florence" as an open question, not a scandal.
If you could instantly bring one store or restaurant to Florence tomorrow, what would it be? Vote and comment — last time residents did this, it helped predict what actually got built next.
Tell us your pickEditor's note: The original framework for this article assumed Florence has no bulk-retail presence. That claim didn't hold up under a basic search — a Sam's Club operates in the city — so this article was rewritten around the more specific and accurate gap: the brands residents actually asked for in a real, dated poll.