A Wichita ‘food desert’ is losing its grocery store
A Wichita neighborhood already considered to be a “food desert” is losing its main grocery store.
Saturday will be the last day in business for the Save A Lot grocery store at Pawnee and George Washington Boulevard in the Planeview neighborhood. The store has operated there since 2011.
The closure will be another hit to the neighborhood, which is bounded by Pawnee, 31st Street South, Oliver and Hillside. It’s one of Wichita’s poorest neighborhoods, and low-income residents there often lack access to transportation that would allow them to get healthy food.
Although the neighborhood has nearby a few small ethnic markets, plus both QuikTrip and Kwik Shop stores, there are no other nearby grocery stores that sell fresh produce and other healthy foods.
The nearest Dillon’s is 2.5 miles away at Harry and Edgemoor, and the nearest Walmart is two miles away at Broadway and Pawnee. Another grocery store that the neighborhood once frequented — Checker’s at Pawnee and Hydraulic — closed in 2013.
“We take the decision to close any Save A Lot location very seriously and regularly review our stores on a number of factors,” said Save A Lot company spokeswoman Sarah Griffin in an email. “As part of this review, we made the difficult decision to forgo our lease renewal for our Wichita store, located at 2404 George Washington Blvd, and will close this location on December 19.”
Employees at the store were given the option to transfer to the city’s last remaining Save A Lot store, at 13th and Grove. It will remain open, Griffin said on Tuesday. She later clarified that the 10 employees at the store were offered either the chance to transfer or to get a severance, depending on their position and tenure. Two of those employees will transfer to the 13th Street store, she said.
The Save-A-Lot store opening was big news back in 2011. Developer Rob Snyder had first proposed a plan to build the store in 2010, asking for $900,000 in tax incentives to pay for the project. Though the Wichita City Council approved the plan, the Sedgwick County Commission voted against it.
Months later, a company out of Pittsburg, Kansas — which had planned to lease and operate the store under Snyder’s plan — said that it would build the store. BR&D owner Tim Rhodes said at the time that he’d received many emails, letters and calls from people expressing a need for the store.
It cost $2.8 million for the land and the building, with the city providing a $55,000 Community Development Block Grant.
The store has been corporate-owned since 2018, Griffin said. A Save A Lot store opened at Harry and Broadway in 2017 but didn’t last long. It’s about to become an El Mercado Fresco supermarket.
Cindy Miles, who serves on the District Advisory Board for District 3, which includes Planeview, said that she and her fellow board members had not heard about the store’s impending closing.
“It’s very devastating to neighborhoods when they have food deserts, and when they lose a grocery store, that really creates additional struggles for people,” she said. “We’ve got to think creatively as a community how we can maintain some of those grocery stores in those areas.”
Building owner Drew Rhodes said he did not have a new tenant to replace Save A Lot but said he felt the neighborhood needed a grocery store.
Drew Gannon with NAI Martens is handling leasing for the property.
This story was originally published December 15, 2020 at 1:32 PM.
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