ST. PETERSBURG —
Mary Ann Buckingham never had a driver’s license. For 35 years, she walked through the Five Towns community with a push stroller to buy her groceries at the Publix next door. She died last year at 84. On the night of March 7, her family was the last to check out. The store closed for good behind them.
The Publix at Eagles Park Retail Center, just steps from the largest 55-and-older community in St. Petersburg, is gone. For the roughly 1,700 residents of Five Towns who walked there for groceries and a reason to leave the house, the closure has left a void that a new store two miles away cannot fill…