Chili's Grill & Bar wants to open a second Port St. Lucie location, this time on the northwest corner of Southwest Becker Road and Village Parkway in the Southern Grove area, according to plans submitted March 4, 2026. It would mark the chain's first foray into the rapidly developing southern half of the city, filling a gap that has existed for years while retail growth concentrated far to the north.
The proposed restaurant would sit on one of six outparcels near the new Lowe's, as reported by Treasure Coast Newspapers, which first reported on the filing. Southern Grove sits within Port St. Lucie's Tradition community, and this would be just the second Chili's in the city. The existing location has operated at 2050 N.W. Courtyard Circle in St. Lucie West, near Interstate 95 Exit 121, according to Chili's Grill & Bar, more than nine miles north of the proposed Southern Grove site — a distance that has long meant a lengthy drive for full-service dining for residents in the city's southern reaches.
A New Retail Hub Rises Around the Becker Road Corridor
The Chili's filing lands amid a broader commercial buildout at Shoppes at Southern Grove, the retail center at Southwest Becker Road and Southwest Village Parkway that developers PEBB Enterprises and Banyan Development broke ground on in August 2025. The project is anchored by a 134,000-square-foot Lowe's home improvement store with an attached garden center, built to serve the thousands of new residents pouring into the surrounding Tradition community, per local commercial real estate reporting from CRE-Sources.
That anchor property has already changed hands. PEBB Enterprises announced the $10.5 million sale of the Lowe's building and garden center to A. Duda & Sons Inc. in June 2026, finalizing the anchor store's disposition even as outparcel development continued around it. Beyond the proposed Chili's, site plans and lease filings for other Southern Grove outparcels between 2025 and 2026 point to a drive-thru Taco Bell, a Wawa gas station, a Chipotle, a Tesla dealership, and a drive-thru Panda Express at 7916 SW Becker Road, according to TCPalm.
Population Growth Fuels the Chain Expansion Push
The rush of national brands to Southern Grove tracks with Port St. Lucie's status as one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. The city added 9,131 residents between July 2024 and July 2025, reaching 268,062 residents and ranking ninth nationally for the largest numeric population gain, according to U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 estimates released in May 2026. Commercial leasing filings from PEBB Enterprises indicate more than 38,000 new residential homes are planned or under development across the broader Tradition community, a customer base developers are clearly banking on.
Southern Grove itself is a 3,605-acre Development of Regional Impact that the City of Port St. Lucie acquired in 2018 to build out a master-planned corridor for jobs, commerce, and industrial growth, aiming to stimulate local employment and cut down on long-distance commuting, per the city.
Full-Service Dining Options Multiply Nearby
Chili's isn't the only sit-down chain betting on the corridor. Connecticut-based Maggie McFly's selected 662 SE Becker Road at Shoppes at Veranda Falls for its second Florida location earlier in 2026, replacing the former Bonefish Mac's, according to PrimaDonnaProperties, which notes that southern Port St. Lucie residents have historically had to drive to Jupiter or Palm Beach Gardens for comparable full-service dining. PEBB Enterprises and Banyan Development have made a habit of building and flipping these retail sites across Tradition — the pair also completed and sold the 71,000-square-foot ALDI-anchored Shoppes @ the Heart of Tradition for $32 million to 4Y Plaza LLC in May 2025, according to Shopping Center Business.
Chili's parent company Brinker International, meanwhile, has the financial momentum to back an expansion push. The company reported its 20th consecutive quarter of same-store sales growth for Chili's in April 2026, with a 4.0% increase in the third quarter of fiscal 2026 following an 8.6% gain the prior quarter, according to Brinker International. No timeline for construction or an opening date at the Southern Grove site has been made public.
