I think one difference between the construction of Colony Plaza retail area and the area around Brownwood is that when Colony was constructed, there were a lot of potential customers already in place (i.e., the area south of Sumter Landing) and even more being actively built (Hadley, Hemingway, etc.) For these people, Colony became the most convenient place to shop.
Brownwood on the other hand is quite aways from where most of the construction has been going on (closer to 466A). Hence, for most of the new residents, Colony would still be the closer place to shop than Brownwood. Since Publix already has a semi-monopoly on that market, there is little incentive for them to compete with themselves by putting in another store that would actually be less convenient than the Colony store. Now that I see some construction of houses going on closer to Brownwood, this situation will likely change in the future.
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