ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 A community grocery store could be steps closer to being a reality in South St. Pete. A group of organizers met with city leaders on Thursday to discuss a possible solution to the food desert in the area.<\/p>\n
Based on reactions from city leaders, there\u2019s a strong possibility something like this could happen, but this is still in the infancy stages.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
A group of organizers met with St. Petersburg city leaders on Thursday to discuss a possible solution to the food desert in the area
\nOne Community Co-op founding member Brother John Muhammad said\u00a0idea of having a community-centered grocery store was born after the area\u2019s only grocery store closed in Tangerine Plaza eight years ago and never returned
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City leaders seem to be strongly considering this option, but there are several questions that remain, like location, funding and sustainability
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One of the council members said she spoke with the developers of Tangerine Plaza, and they have secured a grocer. There are still a lot of steps for that process, but it\u2019s something that could nix the conversation completely<\/p>\n
The option up for discussion at the Health, Energy, Resiliency and Sustainability Committee meeting Thursday was the co-op proposal.<\/p>\n
\u201cA co-op is a business model where you have community residents who are the owners and operators. It\u2019s basically just people who collectively work together to create a business,\u201d said One Community Co-op founding member Brother John Muhammad. \u201cThe member owners would be the ones who determine what the products are in there. So, as a co-operative grocery store, are we going to sell processed food? Are we selling alcohol? So, you have more control over the products, the pricing and the investments being made.\u201d<\/p>\n
Muhammad said this idea of having a community-centered grocery store was born after the area\u2019s only grocery store closed in Tangerine Plaza eight years ago, and never returned. It left behind a food desert with no healthy food for miles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw Sweetbay come and we saw them leave,\u201d Muhammad said. \u201cWe saw Walmart come, we saw them leave, and it was like, ‘Okay, how do we address this? Do we wait on another Superman to come in, or another superhero, or do we organize our community?’\u201d<\/p>\n
City leaders seem to be strongly considering this option, but there are several questions that remain, like location, funding and sustainability.<\/p>\n
The now-vacant Historic Manhattan Casino, slated to be an event space, was mentioned as a possibility, and so was Tangerine Plaza. Earlier this year, the city awarded the Sugar Hill Group to redevelop Tangerine Plaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, Sugar Hill, they have the development rights for Tangerine Plaza and so Tangerine Plaza has always been the focal point for this conversation, because a lot of these conversations started happening when Walmart, who was a tenant, left,\u201d Muhammad said.<\/p>\n
Since they\u2019ve been gone, Muhammad said their co-op group has stepped up with pop-up grocery shops and so have others like Positive Impact St. Pete.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe meet the need in South St. Pete. The need is extremely great. Every single Saturday, our organization provides food for nearly 3,000 individuals,\u201d said Positive Impact St. Pete Executive Director Karen Rae.<\/p>\n
Rae said she likes some of the ideas the co-op presented, but after eight years of watching a community in need, she\u2019s hoping for a faster solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proposing that we work together to meet the need today. That we don\u2019t wait on government assistance, but the individuals who have a heart for the hungry, step up and partner with positive impact where we can open a neighborhood market tomorrow,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no real timeline of funding for Rae\u2019s proposal-and the co-op plan is still up in the air too.<\/p>\n
In the meeting, one of the council members said she spoke with the developers of Tangerine Plaza, and they have secured a grocer. There are still a lot of steps for that process, but it\u2019s something that could nix the conversation completely.<\/p>\n
After eight years of waiting, the people invested in the community said they want to keep all options on the table until the healthy food need is met.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 A community grocery store could be steps closer to being a reality in South…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[767,274,770,4369,115,596,4368,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,2032,835],"class_list":["post-3893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-community","tag-app-top-stories","tag-community-news","tag-food-insecurity-and-hunger","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-saundra-weathers","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}