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Inner
City Grocery Store for Des Moines is a Go
At
last, it is going to happen. After years of hard work, planning
and endless meetings and discussions, all of the pieces are now
in place for a 35,000 square foot grocery store to be built in the
heart of Des Moines' Enterprise Community (EC). A Walgreens will
also share this corner. Since the 1993 start of the Des Moines EC,
the primary goal of the neighborhood groups, community leaders and
many other partners, including the CB team of the Iowa State HUD
office, has been to develop a state-of-the-art grocery store within
the EC.
Senior
Community Builder William McNarney began working on this project
in 1993 as the State Coordinator through monthly meetings with the
EC steering committee. The turning point of the project was in 1998
when he and then CB Stan Quy delivered a detailed presentation on
HUD's Section 108 loan program to key city officials. Consequently,
the city officials applied for HUD's Section 108 funding, initiating
a $1 million loan and a $1 million EDI Grant for the project. The
Section108 loan commitment was subsequently raised to $2 million
for a total of $3 million in HUD funds towards the project. The
Community Builders were instrumental in assisting the city in the
search for operators by using the national CB network to gather
information on inner city grocery operations in Charlotte, Louisville,
Rochester, Akron, and Philadelphia. They presented this helpful
information to city officials as a part of their planning development
for this venture.
Approximately
$1.5 million of the original funding for the EC is committed. Private
investors group is led by two local African American business leaders
have also stepped up with substantial pledges of support. The overall
cost of the grocery store is projected at approximately $7.5 million.
The grocery operation will create approximately 100 jobs, 25 full
time and 75 part time. The developers have agreed to target a large
percentage of the available jobs for qualified EC residents. Projected
completion date is November 1, 2001.
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