SitemapThe city is requesting proposals from those interested in buying the vacant former Bottom Dollar grocery store at 2649 Glenwood Ave., with preference to be given to plans to reopen it as a grocery store.
“We need to get that location reopened simply because of the accessibility of that store to an entire market of citizens who don’t have sufficient access to a grocery store,” said Mayor John A. McNally.
“I’m not looking to put in a convenience store; I’m looking for a full-service grocery,” he added. “We need more grocery stores, and that’s going to be one of our biggest focuses in 2016.”
“That area remains a food desert without a store there,” said Sarah Lown, public finance manager at the Western Reserve Port Authority and a former economic- development specialist for the city.
About 74 percent of city residents live in food deserts, which Youngstown State University defines as urban areas more than one mile from a full-service grocery store.
The city will accept proposals for the Glenwood Avenue store until noon Feb. 1 in its finance department.
Those interested may tour the store from 3 to 4 p.m. Jan. 5 and 19. There is no established minimum price.
The 18,000-square-foot store, built on the 5.1-acre site in 2011, has been unused since January 2015 and now has no equipment or shelving in place.
ALDI Inc., which acquired 66 former Bottom Dollar stores, including this one, has turned this store over to the city.
The city bought the land from the city school district and sold it to Bottom Dollar for construction of the $1.5 million store.
City officials estimate the 8,354 households in the Glenwood Avenue corridor collectively spend $25.2 million annually on food, excluding restaurant and fast-food purchases.
Median annual household income in the Glenwood corridor for 2013, however, was only $30,029 a year, compared with the national median of $51,939.
“It’s got everything against it,” said David Livingston, managing partner in DJL Supermarket Location Research of Milwaukee, who has 34 years’ experience as a supermarket location consultant.
The shortage of grocery stores in Youngstown stems from “perceived and real crime taking place, excessive shoplifting, increased security costs” and difficulty finding employees, he said.
“If the city wants to make that location viable, they have to make sure that the new owner doesn’t have to pay any type of property taxes,” he said, adding that a potential buyer also may want an interest-free loan to re-equip the store.
Livingston also suggested a variance to allow the use of food stamps to buy prepared foods there and having the grocery store provide catered food for school lunches.
Lown said those suggestions might be accomplished. She said pursuing institutional markets for the store’s prepared foods, such as schools, after-school programs, day-care centers and churches, makes sense.
She said she knows of no provision in Ohio law, however, that would permit Livingston’s suggestion of making the store a sales-tax-free zone.
Livingston said net-profit margins for stores such as Bottom Dollar and ALDI are only 1 percent to 3 percent, and that the Glenwood store likely would need $100,000 to $120,000 in weekly sales volume to break even.
Average daily traffic counts near the store are 10,080 vehicles on Glenwood Avenue, 9,210 on Canfield Road and 5,360 on West Indianola Avenue, the city said.
Lown, who lives in Boardman, said those high-traffic counts are in the store’s favor and that the location would be a convenient stopping point for Boardman and Canfield residents on their way home from work.
“For a market like that, where prices were reasonable, that should be pretty viable,” she said of the location.
“There are promising developments up and down the Glenwood corridor,” Lown said, referring to the urban revitalization efforts of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp.
Bottom Dollar contributed to the neighborhood’s stabilization, she said.
Lown, who said she shopped alone twice a month at the Glenwood Bottom Dollar store, said the staff and customers were courteous and accommodating and that she never felt uncomfortable there from a security standpoint.
The mayor added the Glenwood store was successful. “It attracted citizens not only from the immediate area, but also attracted customers from other areas around the city,” he said.
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