SitemapThe city has come to an agreement with ALDI Inc. for the grocery chain to donate the former Bottom Dollar Food store property on Glenwood Avenue to the municipality.
Mayor John A. McNally confirmed Friday that a deal is in place with legislation to be considered by city council at its Wednesday meeting to authorize the board of control to sign a contract to have the city own the site.
“The Glenwood Avenue property would be gifted back to Youngstown [at no cost] for the city to own and figure out how to develop further,” he said. “Once we retain ownership of the property, the city’s main goal is to have a grocery store there.
”McNally said the city has had conversations with several groups – which he declined to name – about that property. Before his death, Henry Nemenz, whose family owns 24 grocery stores in the area, said he was interested in this property, the two other former Bottom Dollars on East Midlothian Boulevard and Mahoning Avenue, as well as the closed Sparkle Market on Mahoning Avenue.
After obtaining ownership of the Glenwood location, McNally said the city will seek requests for proposals from businesses to purchase the property.“We’ll consider other uses, but a grocery store there is concern No. 1,” he said.
The city sold the Glenwood Avenue property in 2010 to Bottom Dollar for $14,000. That land featured Fosterville Park, which consisted of old playground equipment, and the closed Cleveland School.
Two years later, Bottom Dollar opened a 17,000-square-foot location, the only full-service grocery store on the South Side.
Bottom Dollar’s parent company, Delhaize Group, announced in November 2014 that it had sold all 66 of its locations for $15 million to ALDI, another grocery-store chain.ALDI opted to convert 30 of the Bottom Dollar locations, but none of the three in Youngstown made the cut.
Since that decision in January, city officials have been asking ALDI to donate the Glenwood property to Youngstown.Bottom Dollar leased the Mahoning Avenue store with ALDI taking over that lease.
The city approached ALDI about donating the East Midlothian Boulevard property that the company owns, McNally said.
“They’re trying to market that separately” and won’t give the city the store, which is located in a shopping plaza, the mayor said. There are full-service grocery stores near the Midlothian location in Struthers and Boardman, McNally said.
But there are no full-service grocery stores near the Glenwood site, he said.
The Glenwood location is considered to be in a food desert, a term used to describe struggling urban areas without full-service grocery stores within a mile. About 74 percent of city residents live in food deserts, according to Youngstown State University’s Center for Urban and Regional Studies.There are only five full-service supermarkets in the city.
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