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Grady P. Appleton, President and CEO, East Akron Neighborhood Development Corp.
Cazzell M. Smith, Sr., Community Organizer, East Akron Neighborhood Development Corp.
Challenge: In 1993, East Akron, Ohio's local supermarket threatened to close, leaving the low and moderate-income residents without a nearby place to shop for groceries and other goods. They also feared that the loss of the store would impact other businesses. Two of the banks in the neighborhood had already started having shorter work weeks and there was some concern that the banks would close altogether. How could the residents work together to ensure the viability of the neighborhood?
Since 1982, the East Akron Neighborhood Development Corp. (EANDC) has been serving individuals and families in Akron and surrounding areas. The mission of EANDC is to improve communities by providing quality and affordable housing, comprehensive homeownership services and economic development opportunities.
The loss of the supermarket/department store would undermined what the agency had been striving for year after year, a viable neighborhood with the necessary amenities. They held two meetings with F. Steven Albrecht, President of the F.W. Albrecht Grocery Company to persuade the owner to keep the store in the community. The meetings were attended by individuals from the area's private, public and religious sectors. At the meeting, the owner stated that the store had been losing money for 10 years. He also said that the store had stayed far longer than other stores that had already closed and left. The store closed in September of 1993.
Then EANDC in concert with East Akron Community House, a community based settlement house, brought together a private, public, religious coalition to decide what to do about getting a supermarket in the neighborhood. They held a "Goal-Setting Conference" to reaffirm that the neighborhood wanted a supermarket. A Supermarket Coalition was established. Representatives of which met with the owner of the closed supermarket in an attempt to get the supermarket back in the neighborhood, but the meeting was fruitless.
The city of Akron then asked EANDC to spearhead an effort to get a supermarket for the neighborhood. The City provided technical assistance and resources to EANDC to support this effort. One of their first steps was to hire an experienced consultant who had provided technical assistance to other non-profits who successfully developed neighborhood supermarkets. The consulting firm had studied supermarket development and had been commissioned by the Department of Agriculture to write a book on their research. Through his study, the consultant determined that the neighborhood could support a full service grocery store and related retail. Based on the study and successful advocacy by EANDC, an agreement was made with city government and the private sector to create a plaza with a supermarket as an anchor.
It was not an easy process. They faced barrier after barrier on the path to make the supermarket a reality. One supermarket chain agreed to be the anchor business and then backed out. It turned out that the site was badly contaminated and it took the EPA a long time to remediate the site. After very lengthy negotiations with the owner of the parcel of land, the city eventually had to acquire the site. Then city of Akron and EANDC had to obtain other sources of funding which was a monumental task.
But finally in 2004, after an 11 year battle, the Middlebury Plaza became a reality with Dave's Supermarket as the anchor business with related retail. It was the first new retail shopping center in Center City Akron in 40 years. In addition to providing vital goods and services to the neighborhood, there were many other positive economic impacts from the development, including: $9,000,000 of economic development, 60 full-time jobs and 120 part-time jobs, increased income tax and property tax revenues and additional private development. Currently, plans are on the drawing board for Phase III of the retail development of the outer parcel of the property.
There were several critical "lessons learned" from this effort:
Cazzell M. Smith, Sr., Community Organizer, East Akron Neighborhood Development Corp.
Challenge: In 1993, East Akron, Ohio's local supermarket threatened to close, leaving the low and moderate-income residents without a nearby place to shop for groceries and other goods. They also feared that the loss of the store would impact other businesses. Two of the banks in the neighborhood had already started having shorter work weeks and there was some concern that the banks would close altogether. How could the residents work together to ensure the viability of the neighborhood?
Since 1982, the East Akron Neighborhood Development Corp. (EANDC) has been serving individuals and families in Akron and surrounding areas. The mission of EANDC is to improve communities by providing quality and affordable housing, comprehensive homeownership services and economic development opportunities.
The loss of the supermarket/department store would undermined what the agency had been striving for year after year, a viable neighborhood with the necessary amenities. They held two meetings with F. Steven Albrecht, President of the F.W. Albrecht Grocery Company to persuade the owner to keep the store in the community. The meetings were attended by individuals from the area's private, public and religious sectors. At the meeting, the owner stated that the store had been losing money for 10 years. He also said that the store had stayed far longer than other stores that had already closed and left. The store closed in September of 1993.
Then EANDC in concert with East Akron Community House, a community based settlement house, brought together a private, public, religious coalition to decide what to do about getting a supermarket in the neighborhood. They held a "Goal-Setting Conference" to reaffirm that the neighborhood wanted a supermarket. A Supermarket Coalition was established. Representatives of which met with the owner of the closed supermarket in an attempt to get the supermarket back in the neighborhood, but the meeting was fruitless.
The city of Akron then asked EANDC to spearhead an effort to get a supermarket for the neighborhood. The City provided technical assistance and resources to EANDC to support this effort. One of their first steps was to hire an experienced consultant who had provided technical assistance to other non-profits who successfully developed neighborhood supermarkets. The consulting firm had studied supermarket development and had been commissioned by the Department of Agriculture to write a book on their research. Through his study, the consultant determined that the neighborhood could support a full service grocery store and related retail. Based on the study and successful advocacy by EANDC, an agreement was made with city government and the private sector to create a plaza with a supermarket as an anchor.
It was not an easy process. They faced barrier after barrier on the path to make the supermarket a reality. One supermarket chain agreed to be the anchor business and then backed out. It turned out that the site was badly contaminated and it took the EPA a long time to remediate the site. After very lengthy negotiations with the owner of the parcel of land, the city eventually had to acquire the site. Then city of Akron and EANDC had to obtain other sources of funding which was a monumental task.But finally in 2004, after an 11 year battle, the Middlebury Plaza became a reality with Dave's Supermarket as the anchor business with related retail. It was the first new retail shopping center in Center City Akron in 40 years. In addition to providing vital goods and services to the neighborhood, there were many other positive economic impacts from the development, including: $9,000,000 of economic development, 60 full-time jobs and 120 part-time jobs, increased income tax and property tax revenues and additional private development. Currently, plans are on the drawing board for Phase III of the retail development of the outer parcel of the property.
There were several critical "lessons learned" from this effort:
- By the time the community attempted to intervene to get the store to stay, it was already too late. Intervention should have begun much earlier when the store's quality was slipping and it was having a hard time being competitive with other grocery stores. It turns out that there were several clues as to what was happening. The Albrecht Grocery Company was pitted against retail giants Kmart and Wal-Mart and several regional powerhouses such as Giant Eagle and Finast. Also there were other grocery stores with a strong presence in the area like Marc's Food 4 Less and Apple's. Albrecht asked its distribution center employees represented by Teamsters Local 348 to open contract negotiations early and institute new pay and benefit rates for incoming employees so that Albrecht could be competitive with nonunion wages.
- East Akron Neighborhood Development Corporation had experience in housing redevelopment but no retail experience. Because of their lack of experience in retail, EANDC should have locked in a 20 year fixed interest rate instead of using New Markets Tax Credits which only provided seven year financing.
- The project was costly to develop. EANDC used a number of financial resources available at that time including, statewide loan funds, federal funding, city funds, TIF and its own capital (Neighborworks America). It would have made more sense for the city to have granted some of the funds instead of loaning the funds to EANDC. If the city had donated the land, the real estate tax abatement could have been a great help to the project.
