That’s after City Council members voted to approve a multi-million-dollar development incentive for the project during Wednesday’s council meeting.
The incentive plan includes more than $5 million for developers to start work on a full-service Tom Thumb grocery store. This comes after what some council members say has been a years-long battle to bring quality retail shopping to the predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood — and to remedy the area's food desert.
Council Member Tennell Atkins represents District 8, where the new Tom Thumb grocery store will be built. He said he’s worked for nearly two decades bring more development opportunities to Redbird.
“The people at Redbird have been hoping for a grocery store for two decades,” Atkins said. “Now hope is coming here.”
The project is being developed by longtime Redbird developer Peter Brodsky.
The investment was approved unanimously — but some council members had questions as to the mounting costs of the project. Others framed the investment in terms of the city’s racial equity pledge.
Past investments
Atkins says that southern Dallas has been a food desert for years. He hopes the grocery store, which will be built in a shopping center near Highway 67 and Interstate 20, will bring new opportunities for residents in his district.
But the road to the revamped development has been long.
Atkins says that over the years, nearly $40 million has been invested in the area to remedy inequity and increase economic development. The new grocery store is the latest in a long line of investments dating back almost two decades, according to the council member.
“This grocery store is something that we’ve been fighting for the last three years,” Atkins said.
However, this is not the first time the city has tried to draw developers into District 8. Council Member Cara Mendelsohn says that the city offered $3 million before. No developers accepted the incentive package.
She said that this issue has been around as long as she has been on the council. She also says she has personally met with representatives from other grocery chains about building a store in the Redbird area — with no luck.
“I think we all acknowledge in the whole city that a grocery store is needed there,” Council Member Cara Mendelsohn said.
City staffers say that the goal of the years-long investments is to entice private developers to the area and get more outside investment so the area could function independently – without city intervention.
'Drilled into our heads'
During a press conference after the plan had been approved, an attendee asked council members and developers why anyone should be “celebrating” economic development that happens every day in other parts of the city.
Up until now, residents living near Redbird had to leave their neighborhood and shop for groceries in different surrounding suburbs – that includes Mayor Pro Tem Carolyn King Arnold.
Arnold says because of this incentive plan she “can go right to Redbird Mall.”
Several council members said that the reason the development had taken so long — and the reason to celebrate the plan — is because of historic perceptions of southern Dallas.
“While it’s never said, and maybe it’s not even a conscious thought, I think another thing that’s drilled into our heads is 'this community doesn’t deserve the things that happen in North Dallas',” Peter Brodsky, the developer for the project, said at a press conference Wednesday.
Brodsky says that this attitude around the southern parts of the city — that it’s a uniformly poor and dangerous area — may have kept developers away from accepting incentive packages from the city.
Mendelsohn says that although she is supporting the Redbird incentive — and glad about the new development — the city has already “put forward a lot of money, a lot of time” into the area.
“I’m going to support it, but I am not going to support anything else that comes forward in this area,” Mendelsohn said. “I think now, it’s time for it to stand on its own legs.”
Other council members did not share the same mindset — and raised questions about the emphasis put on the cost of the program.
“I’m sick and tired of people asking, ‘how much money do we need to go to Southern Dallas’,” Atkins said. “We need billions of dollars.”
Council Member Adam Bazaldua, who represents District 7, says that council members need to be intentional about the way they talk about investing in underserved communities around Dallas.
“I never saw that same concern in the amount of money this city disproportionately invests in other parts of [Dallas],” Council Member Adam Bazaldua said during Wednesday’s press conference.
Bazaldua says that incentivizing developers to come work in an area is the same process that happens in the northern areas of Dallas. To Council Member Atkins, the development is not only about retail shopping.
“It’s not just about a grocery store. It’s about quality of life. It’s about infrastructure,” Council Member Atkins said.
Got a tip? Email Nathan Collins at ncollins@kera.org. You can follow Nathan on Twitter @nathannotforyou.
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