A Sprouts Farmers Market is still being advertised as coming to Spring Hill in 2027. On October 30, WhatNow Nashville ran a story saying the store will anchor Port Royal Marketplace at Duplex Road and Port Royal Road, with construction in 2026 and an opening in 2027.
City records don't show that kind of progress. No site plan for the project has appeared on a Spring Hill Planning Commission agenda from August 2025 through the October 26, 2026 meeting. We found no building permit. The most recent satellite imagery we could find, from February 2025, shows an empty field at the corner.
That doesn't mean the store is dead. It does mean the timeline everyone keeps repeating hasn't moved.
What was announced
In October 2025, Brentwood-based developer GBT Realty announced that it had submitted plans to the city on August 18, 2025 for a Sprouts-anchored shopping center on the southwest corner of Duplex Road and Port Royal Road. GBT said that, "with City approvals," construction would start in early 2026 and the store would open in early 2027, with about 80 full- and part-time jobs.
"This is the first grocer focused on fresh, organic product to be proposed in the Spring Hill market," GBT founder George Tomlin said in the announcement.
Site plan for Port Royal Marketplace showing the Sprouts building, two shop buildings, a pad site and three outparcels along Duplex Road.
Source: GBT Realty leasing materials
What's in the plan
These numbers come from GBT's leasing materials, not a city-approved plan:
- Sprouts: 23,262 square feet, 117 parking spaces
- Two shop buildings: 8,000 square feet each
- One pad building: 6,800 square feet
- Total: 46,062 square feet and 231 parking spaces on about 8 acres
- Three outparcels along Duplex Road, about 1 to 1.7 acres each, for future restaurants or shops
GBT lists possible tenants such as medical offices, restaurants, coffee or ice cream shops, clothing stores and gyms. None have been announced.
Aerial view of the empty corner at Duplex Road and Port Royal Road with the proposed shopping center drawn in.
Source: GBT Realty leasing materials
A resident asked for this in 2024
The project first came to the Planning Commission in August and September 2024 as a concept plan. At that point the grocer wasn't named. The plan showed a larger grocery store of about 45,000 square feet, plus a fuel center.
At the September 9, 2024 meeting, then-commissioner Matt Fitterer, now Spring Hill's mayor, said he had forwarded the developer a resident's request to consider a grocer "more oriented towards organic and natural foods." A year later, the grocer turned out to be Sprouts.
Commissioners also asked about a shared stormwater pond, building materials and the missing fuel center designs. Staff said the full site plan would need color renderings. City staff said sewer capacity and traffic studies would come with the site plan.
2024 concept plan for the corner of Duplex Road and Port Royal Road.
Source: City of Spring Hill, via Main Street Maury (2024)
Why "early 2026" didn't happen
The likely answer is sewer. Spring Hill has been under a sewer moratorium since January 2026, the same month GBT hoped to start building. New projects can't get sewer connections, and building permits have dropped sharply. In October 2025, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen also briefly stopped accepting new development applications while the city studied sewer capacity.
Neither GBT nor the city has said publicly that the Sprouts project is waiting on sewer. But a grocery store needs a sewer connection, and the city isn't giving out new ones right now.
Why it matters to you
- Groceries: The nearest Sprouts today is in Franklin, on Murfreesboro Road. Sprouts' Tennessee store list doesn't include Spring Hill yet. Our Spring Hill grocery guide covers the stores in town now.
- Jobs: About 80, according to GBT.
- City money: Spring Hill keeps only a small slice of each sales-tax dollar spent here. See how Spring Hill pays for itself. Tennessee taxes groceries at a 4% state rate, compared with 7% on most other purchases. The shops and restaurants that open around a grocery store pay the full rate.
- Traffic: The plan shows driveways off Port Royal Road and Melbridge Lane, next to the existing signal at Duplex.
What to watch for
- A site plan on a Planning Commission agenda. Look for GBT Realty, Port Royal Marketplace or "southwest corner of Duplex and Port Royal." That's the first real sign the project is moving.
- Sewer. Any change to the moratorium, or a sewer allocation for this site.
- A building permit, then grading at the corner.
- Sprouts itself. When Sprouts adds a store to its website with an opening date, it's real. Spring Hill isn't listed yet.
Spring Hill has waited on a grocery store before. Hy-Vee promised a store at June Lake in 2022 and still hasn't built it.