Wichita mulls using COVID money to restore grocery access where Save A Lot ducked out
The city of Wichita has begun exploring the potential in using COVID-19 relief money to bring fresh food to Wichita neighborhoods suffering from the closures of their Save A Lot grocery stores, the mayor said Tuesday.
That may or may not include bringing in another grocery store operator to replace the three Save A Lots that have closed or are closing, said Mayor Brandon Whipple.
“Can we use this really bad situation as a way to improve the overall problem of access to food in the short term and also in the long term?” he said. “We’re looking at other options at this moment with local entrepreneurs, folks that already kind of work in delivering food in a variety of different communities to see if there’s another opportunity that could even expand services beyond just grocery stores.”
A local, state and federal summit of sorts was held Tuesday to address the food access issue, attended by Whipple, council member Brandon Johnson, City Manager Robert Layton, state Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau and Rep. Gail Finney. Also attending was Wiley Smith, a representative of the state Commerce Department and Tyler York and Katie Sawyer, field representatives for U.S. Sens. Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall.
The federal officials are involved because the city is contemplating using start-up money from the city’s allocation under ARPA, the American Rescue Plan Act, a federal law aimed at helping communities’ and states’ economic recovery from the COVID pandemic.
The city may also experiment with grocery delivery, possibly allowing people who live in underserved areas to receive food on their doorsteps instead of scrambling to obtain transportation.
People could place orders for groceries at community centers or other neighborhood gathering points, then have the city’s transit department send a shuttle to pick up the orders and deliver them back to the neighborhood locations, or even people’s homes, Whipple said.
“There was a discussion about trying to create better public transportation opportunities to bring people to stores,” Whipple said. “The manager (Layton) said when they looked into it, they thought that food delivery service would be more cost-effective and also better service.”
The proposals come in the wake of the announcement of the planned closure of the city’s last Save A Lot, a supermarket at 13th and Grove built largely with federal funds that was supposed to be the solution to Dillons’ departure from the historically Black area.
That closure follows on the heels of the December 2020 shutdown of a Save A Lot at Pawnee and George Washington Boulevard and the closure of a third Save a Lot that had moved into an abandoned Dillons at 1640 S. Broadway.
The Broadway store is undergoing renovation and will soon be the site of a new Hispanic grocery store that will carry fresh meat and produce, said Steve Barrett, the leasing agent for the J.P. Weigand and Sons commercial realty firm. “We’re real excited about it,” he said.
Faust-Goudeau said she still remembers the excitement around the northeast Save A Lot when she attended the ribbon-cutting there in 2006 and said she was unpleasantly surprised when the store decided to close.
Save A Lot didn’t announce the closure publicly, but news leaked and Johnson was able to get confirmation the store was planning to shut down July 10.
“It’s unfortunate though that Save A Lot did not alert the city or people in advance,” Faust-Goudeau said. “It caught all of us by surprise. I am hopeful and I know with the people who were at the table today, we are going to get something done.”
Faust-Goudeau said her cousin, Ashley Faust, was brought up as a possible local owner of a new grocery store. Faust, a nurse, has been working for more than a year to open a store in northeast Wichita, Faust-Goudeau said.
In February, Faust started a GoFundMe to raise funds for a grocery store with “healthier food options in a federally qualified food desert,” the fundraiser said. It’s raised about $3,300 toward a $60,000 goal.
“I think it is perfect timing that she had already been saving money and trying to pursue a locally owned grocery store,” Faust-Goudeau said. “We want them to have healthy choices. It’s our job to help address this issue.”
One part of the Save A Lot story that the mayor is working hard to debunk is a rumor that the company closed its Wichita stores because of excessive theft.
After seeing that possible explanation pop up repeatedly on social media, including in City Council campaigns, Whipple said he asked the police department to research the number of incidents at the 13th and Grove Save A Lot and the results were unremarkable.
“In the last three years, there have been 15 (crime) cases and only 58 calls,” he said. “Overall the final line in this memo is just they had very few calls or issues at the store. So I’m hoping we can push back against this idea that somehow it’s the community’s fault that Save A Lot is leaving because of theft, because that doesn’t appear to have any evidence.”
He said the city has researched Save A Lot in other markets and the real cause of its closures appears to be a shift in its business model.
“They’re going through some kind of corporate change,” Whipple said. “Our city manager did some research and there’s about 11 stores that closed in Florida. It seems like they are looking to go to a franchise model. We understand that’s one of the issues with Save a Lot currently is that they’re looking for someone to take over . . . and go that route with it.”
This story was originally published June 29, 2021 at 4:46 PM.
