TAMPA - For sale: Historical grocery store and warehouse. New location.

The city and the state's Department of Transportation have been working for years to save old houses in Ybor City that otherwise would be demolished to make way for road work. Now they're aiming to protect a handful of historical commercial structures.

The effort, called the Tampa Interstate Historic Mitigation Project, has its roots in the expansion of Interstate 4 in the 1990s. Thirty-five houses that stood in the way or that could have been affected by future expansions have been relocated.

Funding exists for another 29 structures to be moved. Among those are a handful of commercial buildings, said Dennis Fernandez, the city's historical preservation manager.

The first to be identified, the former El Progresso de Ybor Grocery, a two-story brick building, once stood at 12th Street and 14th Avenue. A one-story brick warehouse sat behind it. Now they are at Columbus Drive and 10th Street.

"We wanted to preserve the buildings because they give a sense of continuity to the area," Fernandez said. "When we saw those particular structures and learned of their association to the neighborhood, we knew we wanted to preserve them."

Records show the two-story building was constructed in 1908. It operated as grocery store for most of its existence and has been vacant only a few years. It includes two apartments and a wrap-around, second-story porch.

About a month ago, the state, using Federal Highway Administration funding, moved the entire structure to Columbus Drive, a mixed-use neighborhood that has seen several building relocations, including a former boarding house a few blocks away. The city is accepting bids for the property and will unseal them April 11.

Frances Andrade Menke, 61, remembers when her grandfather and grandmother, Eugenio and Casimira Lera, operated the store and lived in an apartment above it. The couple eventually moved across the street to a house.

"It was a nice neighborhood store back then. He had the meat market and the produce. My favorite part was the candy booth," said Menke, who kept the building for about five years after her mother, Laura, died in 1999.

Menke lived in Miami with her parents but visited her grandparents during summers and Christmas. The warehouse sat out back and chickens roamed the alley between the structures. She remembers sitting behind the counter and helping customers. There was a big walk-in freezer with sides of beef. "Everybody spoke Spanish back then," she said.

Menke couldn't afford renovations and sold the building a few years ago. Eventually, the state acquired the property and deeded it to the city, which is looking for a buyer.

Elaine Illes, a transportation department consultant, said she hopes that the eventual buyer sees the value in preserving the building and, perhaps, turning it back into a neighborhood grocery.

Back in the 1960s, the construction of I-4 devastated the compact Ybor neighborhoods.

"The idea here is not only to preserve some of these historical structures but to keep them in the historic district," Illes said. "In this case, the city asked us to look at this building because it was one of the last remaining neighborhood grocery stores."

Reporter Rich Shopes can be reached at (813) 259-7633 or rshopes@tampatrib.com.