A stunner of a shopping center that opened with a
ShopRite a few months ago in a vast industrial pocket of North Philadelphia
came about, you could say, through the cravings of a developer's mind and
stomach.
One dreary day a couple of years ago, Michael Grasso
was driving around Fox Street and Hunting Park Avenue in the winter rain to
consider snapping up an old Tasty Baking Co. warehouse about to hit the market
as the treats maker headed to new digs at the Navy Yard.
Grasso, president of Metro Development Co. of
Ardmore, and vice president Greg Bianchi passed forlorn hulks from the city's
manufacturing glory days - some in use, some vacant - along with modest homes
tucked out of sight of the maze of industrial concrete and brick.
More upscale residential East Falls also was,
invisibly, a few blocks away, as was an office stuffed with medical workers,
and an on-ramp to the busy Roosevelt Boulevard expressway. But when Grasso
wanted a cup of coffee, he and Bianchi hit a wall.
"Where do these people shop?" Grasso
wondered.
Two years later, the veteran retail developer has
delivered this answer: Bakers Centre, a $58 million, 235,000-square-foot
shopping space with a 72,000-square-foot ShopRite in a onetime food desert. It
is a gleaming complex that, only a few years ago, would have been a non-starter
in this neighborhood.
Bakers Centre has risen where that Tasty warehouse
once stood, in a neighborhood whose average household income - about $27,000 -
had deterred retail development.
But Grasso had a plan: assemble 33 acres,
including the old warehouse, and connect with a supermarket operator who could
pull it off - Jeff Brown, owner of 11 ShopRites, some in once-abandoned zip
codes, all remarkably successful despite surrounding poverty.
Tasty was looking to sell quickly, and for cash.
Grasso pitched a deal including bank loans, $6.5 million in capital from him
and his investors, a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development, and a $12 million state Redevelopment Assistance Capital
Program grant former Gov. Ed Rendell promised and the Corbett administration
agreed not to scrap, he said.
With the full-throated support of a neighborhood
desperate to divert its dollars locally, Grasso and Bianchi moved swiftly.
Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. and city officials
pushed to change the Tasty parcel's zoning from industrial to allow for retail
"even before we closed with Tastykake" two years ago, Grasso said.
Plus, he bought all the land before the rest of the deal was lined up.
(To compare: It took him seven years to complete a
high-brow shopping center anchored by a Wegmans on Route 611 in Warrington,
Bucks County.)
"This thing went incredibly well," said
Brown, who credited Grasso, for one, for taking the risks to acquire land
before everything else was settled.
Bianchi said the alacrity with which city
officials granted approvals "was very instrumental" in the
developers' success. He also spent hours driving skeptical retailers through
the neighborhoods surrounding the forbidding warehouse area before persuading
them to happily commit to leases.
Since opening Aug. 1, the ShopRite has delivered
revenue "far, far beyond what I expected," Brown said. The store, his
second-largest, offers the uniquely tailored mix of affordable food and
high-end offerings he's known for - but on a more ambitious scale:
A giant fresh-seafood section; a Krispy Kreme
doughnut area; a 12-foot-long grill pit where butterflied chickens are dished
out; an international foods store-within-a-store; a credit union and
personal-finance services counter; an online grocery-delivery staging area; and
a walk-in health clinic, among others.
"You're the owner, right?" asked retired
Peco worker Rosamond Kay, 66, of Germantown, who ran into Brown in the produce
aisle.
"I'm glad you put a big grocery store in my
neighborhood," Kay said, vigorously shaking Brown's hand. "I'm proud
of you."
Such longing has been on State Sen. Vincent
Hughes' constituent radar for years. His lower- and middle-income constituents
and students from Philadelphia University wanted a top supermarket nearby
rather than having to trek afar to load up on groceries.
But in 2011, Hughes worried the project might not
make it past planning - $12 million Rendell earmarked for Grasso had not been
disbursed by the time Gov. Corbett took over.
He had good reason to be concerned: Corbett's
administration publicly frowned on the grant program, for what it perceived as
historically too-loose terms on what would be a qualifying project. Corbett has
since trimmed the pot of available grants.
In early 2011, Hughes reached out to the
governor's transition team, and even brought a leader of his
economic-development team to Philadelphia for a tour of the planned site,
hoping to smooth the way. Whether or not it had any influence, the project was
spared.
When Hughes walked into the supermarket not long
ago, he was beside himself. "My heart jumped out of my body," he
said. "It was very emotional."
Construction on the 33-acre complex will continue
through February, Grasso said.
Source: Philly.com
No comments:
Post a Comment