"We want to focus on fresh, elevated seafood," said Grant Steadman, "but make the experience approachable."
Steadman was talking about the menu at his new restaurant, The Sounder, which opened at 5400 Oleander Drive in January after the building sat empty for nearly three years. He could just as easily have been describing the whole stretch of Oleander Drive that runs past Oleander Estates and Forest Hills. For years this corridor has been defined by what wasn't there: a shuttered gastropub, a dark toy store turned furniture showroom, storefronts you learned to drive past without looking. In the past sixteen months, two of the corridor's longest vacancies found buyers, and the detail that matters isn't the buildings. It's who bought them.
The Building That Couldn't Hold a Concept
Before it was anything else, 5400 Oleander Drive was Eddie Romanelli's. After that it became Hops Supply Co., a gastropub that closed in March 2023 and left the space dark for the better part of two years. Steadman, who founded Flying Machine Brewing, bought the building in late April 2025 with a soft opening planned for December. The actual opening slipped into January 2026, and when it happened, it came with a tagline, "Eat. Drink. Coast.," and a kitchen run by executive chef Jason Burrows, a Maine native who has cooked in Wilmington since 2016.
The seafood angle isn't marketing shorthand. Steadman cofounded Salt Street Oyster Company, a one-acre oyster farm near Topsail Beach off Banks Channel, and The Sounder pulls from that same supply chain that already feeds his Flying Machine Oyster Bar in Wrightsville Beach. Burrows told a local business paper the bones of the building were solid going in, though the renovation still required replacing major systems before the doors could reopen. That's a year and a half from closing to closing, on a building that had already cycled through two concepts before this one.
A Half Mile Down, the Same Story With Groceries
Head west toward College Road and the pattern repeats, just slower. The building at 4510 Oleander Drive held a Toys R Us from 1988 until the chain's 2018 bankruptcy, then sat as Kimbrell's Furniture starting in 2019. When Kimbrell's moved on, Tropicana Supermarkets CEO Chris Gutierrez bought the 43,516-square-foot building in April 2025 for $5.4 million, with plans to use roughly 30,000 square feet for the store and lease the remaining 6,500 square feet to other tenants.
Tropicana is a family business built by Felipe Gutierrez, who moved from the Dominican Republic to North Carolina and grew the chain across the state one store at a time. Local coverage differs on whether Wilmington will be the family's sixth or seventh location, but every source agrees it will be the first inside city limits, and it will sit at one of Oleander's busiest corners, sharing the intersection with Trader Joe's, Walgreens, a Dunkin' and a CVS Pharmacy. As of the most recent public reporting, no opening date had been set. No follow-up announcement has surfaced since, so if you've been watching that storefront and wondering what's taking so long, a 45,000-square-foot former furniture showroom doesn't turn into a full-service international grocery overnight.
| Address | Most recent tenant before change | New owner | What's opening | Status as of this writing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5400 Oleander Drive | Hops Supply Co. (closed March 2023) | Grant Steadman, Flying Machine Brewing | The Sounder, coastal seafood | Open since January 2026 |
| 4510 Oleander Drive | Kimbrell's Furniture | Chris Gutierrez, Tropicana Supermarkets | International grocery store | Purchased April 2025, no opening date announced |
Why the Buyers Weren't Chains
Compare that to what's happening a few blocks away at Hanover Center, 3501 Oleander Drive, where national retailer Boot Barn signed a lease for just over 14,000 square feet next to Homesense, which opened there in 2023. That's the more familiar pattern: a shopping center fills in with brands you already recognize, decided in a corporate real estate office somewhere else.
The two buildings that sat empty longest on this corridor didn't go that route. One went to a Wilmington brewery founder who also runs an oyster farm off Topsail. The other went to a Dominican-American family that built a grocery chain store by store across North Carolina and chose Wilmington as the place to bring it into the city for the first time. Neither buyer needed a market study to tell them Oleander Drive was worth betting on. They already had a stake in this coast.
What Was Already Yours to Use
None of this changes what's already down the road for anyone in Oleander Estates or Forest Hills who wants an afternoon out. Long Leaf Park, the New Hanover County facility formerly known as Hugh MacRae Park, still has the same amenities it's had for years, and they're worth restating because they don't show up in a Google Maps pin:
- A 1.55-mile paved walking trail
- A seasonal splash pad and a fully accessible playground
- A fenced dog park with separate areas for small and large dogs
- A Ninja Fitness obstacle course and exercise stations
- Four lighted Little League fields, four lighted tennis courts, and a full basketball court
- A garden, pond, and gazebo available for wedding ceremonies, plus a StoryWalk path for younger kids
Greenfield Lake Amphitheater, a few minutes the other direction, has a fall calendar that's already locked in. Béla Fleck plays September 1, American Aquarium takes the stage September 4, and Ziggy Marley's Brightside Tour lands September 28. Andy Frasco & the U.N. follow on October 2, Trampled by Turtles on October 8, and Switchfoot with Anberlin close out the run on November 7. The venue also hosts Cape Fear Shakespeare's outdoor performances and the Port City Reggae Music & Arts Festival most years, which means the amphitheater's calendar rarely goes quiet between spring and late fall.
The Errand Run Is About to Change Shape
None of this was planned by a single developer with a master vision for the corridor. It happened because two buildings that had defeated previous tenants finally found owners with a personal reason to make them work. That's a different kind of neighborhood change than a new subdivision or a rezoning fight. It's slower, it's building by building, and it tends to stick because the people doing it aren't testing the market. They already live in it.
If you're weighing what a stretch of commercial frontage like this means for property values nearby, or you're curious how Forest Hills and Oleander Estates compare architecturally to the newer construction filling in around them, we've written about that too in our piece on architectural styles across Forest Hills and Oleander.
For now, the practical update is simpler: there's a new seafood table on Oleander Drive worth trying, a grocery store worth watching for, and two parks and an amphitheater that were never going anywhere in the first place.
If you're weighing a move within Oleander Estates or Forest Hills, or just curious what a home nearby might be worth given the changes on the corridor, Happy Clark offers a complimentary home valuation or a private consultation, no pressure, just a conversation about what you're seeing on your own street.
