Birmingham Council Approves Incentives Package To Bring Grocery Store To District 1
This now-vacant store is to be a new grocery store in Roebuck.
The Birmingham City Council has approved an incentives package to bring a new grocery store to the city’s Roebuck neighborhood as part of a larger initiative to reduce food deserts in Birmingham.
The agreement will include an initial payment of $200,000, then up to an additional $1.6 million, based on the store’s performance, spread out over seven years.
The store, tentatively named The Price Butcher, will be at 1125 Huffman Road, the former location of a Sav-A-Lot, and will “double the amount of fresh produce in the area (and) double the sales area for meat,” Josh Carpenter, the city’s director of innovation and economic opportunity, told the council during a Monday night committee meeting.
“It’s going to expand the food options for the citizens of District 1,” Carpenter said.
The initial $200,000 payment will come from the city’s healthy food initiative, which was created last year to attract new grocery stores to areas of the city that don’t have them. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 69% of Birmingham residents live in food deserts. An East Lake grocery store, Village Market, was given a similar incentive package last year to upgrade its facilities.
Carpenter described the process of bringing the new store to Roebuck as “a year-and-a-half-long courtship” with Dan’s Inc., the company that will manage the store. Attorney Randall Minor, representing the developers, told the council that the building would require “light renovation” but that the store should be open to the public “before Christmas.”
District 1 Councilor Clinton Woods said he hopes the new store will make the shopping center, which is next to Huffman High School, “a true anchor in the community.”
“I think they’ve found a good structure that creates a really good partnership between us,” he said during Tuesday’s meeting. “The one consistent thing I heard (from residents when I took office) was, ‘We don’t have a grocery store at all!’ To see that actually happen and all come together … . I think that’s incredible.”
The council unanimously approved the agreement.
The city of Birmingham also declared this year’s Election Day, Nov. 3, as a one-time unpaid holiday for city employees. City Hall will be closed and the city council meeting scheduled for that day will be pushed to Wednesday, Nov. 4.
Alabama’s prison population sees troubling growth in latest DOJ report
For the first time in nearly a decade, U.S. prison populations are trending up. Alabama's numbers are a part of troubling gains across the Gulf South.
A narrowing Republican presidential field will debate in Tuscaloosa Wednesday
Four candidates will be on stage at the University of Alabama for their last scheduled meeting before the Iowa caucuses kick off the presidential nominating season next month. Former President Donald Trump, the race’s clear front-runner, will not be among them.
Place, Erased: A virtual listening session with the Gulf States Newsroom; RSVP now
Join us as we listen to the recent series about towns transformed by major environmental shifts and talk with the reporters about what they learned.
Tuberville is ending blockade of most military nominees
Tuberville’s blockade of military promotions was over a dispute about a Pentagon abortion policy. The Alabama Republican said Tuesday he’s “not going to hold the promotions of these people any longer.”
Man featured in ‘S-Town’ podcast shot and killed by police during standoff, authorities say
Joseph Tyler Goodson was shot by officers after he barricaded himself inside a home and “brandished a gun" at officers early Sunday, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said. Bibb County Coroner Patrick Turner said that Goodson was pronounced “brain dead” Tuesday night at a hospital.
The next Republican debate is in Alabama, the state that gave the GOP a road map to Donald Trump
The state that propelled George Wallace, a Democrat and four-term governor, into national politics is now dominated by Republicans loyal to Donald Trump, another figure who leans heavily on grievance and white identity politics.
