Grocery Store Planned for 13th Avenue and U.S. 41

For years the people living in the areas around 13th Avenue West and First Street West have been working together to lobby for an easily accessible grocery store in their area.

They wanted something that the people living in public housing nearby could easily walk to and that homeowners around the Tropicana plant could get to without having to drive miles away from their neighborhood.

Om Wednesday some of those residents got a chance to talk about the plans for a new grocery store — likely to be a Save-A-Lot — that could be less than a year away. And it's more than just a supermarket, it's an entire shopping center that could include restaurants and a bank and that is likely to bring more than two dozen jobs in the longterm. All together the project should bring close to 100 jobs including about 70 construction jobs while the development is being built.

Along with the development the CCRA has promised to provide training in those jobs being created.

A deal on the grocery store is close enough to signing that the developers suggested that construction could be complete by January.

Developers and city officials unveiled plans for a retail development that includes a grocery store being negotiated. Usually such deals are kept quiet until the ink is dry on the leasing agreements, but in this case both public and private money is paying for the development that is designed to bring jobs and much needed services to this community. It is also designed to help spur economic development in the surrounding area.

And while the location is easily accessible to the community it is designed to serve, it is in an area notorious for heavy, fast traffic and a pattern of merging vehicles. Those factors prompted residents to ask officials lots of questions about public safety, traffic and construction on the property.

"Other groups didn't want to look at this project because it is challenging," Sherrod Haliburton, former executive director for the Central Community Redevelopment Agency told teh crowd. "We have a group that is committed to making this project safe and viable. A lot of developers wouldn't come here and make this project happen."

The developers, Casto and New Start Community Development, are working with the city's Central Community Redevelopment Agency in a public private partnership to bring an urban grocery store to the area. The more than 3-acre property is triangular and hemmed in by railroal tracks on one side with limited access because of traffic patterns on U.S. 41. It will hold three separate buildings and about nine business, expected to be restaurants, retail and financial institutions.

The $6 million project will receive about $3 million in public funding and leases will include discounts for those businesses that pay above the minimum wage. Because there is so much public investment in the project, the commuity will have several opportunities to ask questions and voice their opinion about the project.

The next public hearing will be with the CCRA board on Feb. 23. The development plan will come before the City Council on Marcb 28 at 6 p.m. The public will have an opportunity at both meetings to ask questions and to comment on the plans.