FORT WORTH, TX - Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo today joined Congressman Martin Frost and Mayor Kenneth Barr in celebrating the upcoming opening of a new Minyard supermarket that will create 165 jobs and attract other new businesses in a low-income neighborhood. The opening was made possible by HUD's investment of $6.6 million in loan guarantees and a $660,000 economic development grant.

The supermarket, set to open in November, is the first new food store in Southeast Fort Worth in over 20 years. Most of the jobs it will create will go to low- and moderate-income residents of the neighborhood.

"Sitting in Washington, you see dollar signs and numbers on pieces of paper to signify our investment in America's communities," Cuomo said. "I've come here to Southeast Fort Worth to see with my own eyes what our investment can do - how it can transform lives by giving people jobs and how it can transform neighborhoods by reversing decades of decline. This new supermarket is just the beginning of better days ahead for Southeast Fort Worth."

"Congressman Frost has worked tirelessly in Washington to bring more jobs and economic development to Fort Worth and has played a key role in bringing this supermarket here ," Cuomo added. "Mayor Barr has done the same here in the city."

Congressman Frost said: "I am pleased that Secretary Cuomo accepted my invitation to come and view the successful result of the commercial venture we had discussed last year when I urged him to support a HUD loan and grant for the city of Fort Worth, which made possible the construction of this much-needed grocery store. Southeast Fort Worth is in critical need of economic development and job opportunities. The HUD loan received by the City has provided the initial incentives needed to continue the crucial and necessary relationship between the City of Fort Worth and HUD."

HUD's Economic Development Loan Guarantee Fund provides communities with a source of financing for job creation, housing rehabilitation, and construction of public facilities and large-scale development projects. The majority of jobs created by each project are available to people with low and moderate incomes.

The Economic Development Loan Guarantees, also known as the Section 108 program, save communities money by reducing the interest rate they are charged on loans from commercial lenders. The guarantees also make loans more readily available and often attract other sources of funding from local and state governments, non-profits and the private sector to complete financing for major job creation activities.

HUD's Economic Development Initiative Grants are designed to create jobs in economically distressed communities by writing down interest and other costs of loans and by providing other kinds of subsidies for innovative economic development projects.