Ally MarottiContact Reporter Chicago Tribune
Jewel-Osco is planning to open a grocery store in the West Woodlawn neighborhood, with expectations for job creation and an influx of outside commerce into the South Side community.
The announcement comes on the heels of the highly anticipated September opening of a Whole Foods Market in nearby Englewood. The same developer, DL3 Realty, is set to work on West Woodlawn's Jewel.
The 48,000-square-foot grocery store is planned for the northwest corner of 61st Street and Cottage Grove Avenue. It is set to fill one of the last undeveloped parcels of the old Grove Parc Plaza, once a dense string of federally subsidized apartments that the nonprofit Preservation of Affordable Housing, or POAH, has been redeveloping for the better part of a decade.
The dilapidated Grove Parc Plaza buildings were demolished in phases, said Bill Eager, POAH's Chicago-area vice president. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit has built or is developing 260 housing units in their place and has bought or rehabbed another 250 units so far.
The redevelopment plan also included bringing other businesses, like Jewel, into the area, Eager said.
"If you ask people, 'What are the main things you want?' You want lower crime and a grocery store," he said. "We've been working to attract someone here for several years."
photo: Bill Eager (left) joined the announcement event
Editors Note: POAH is based in Boston, MA with offices in Washington, D.C. and Chicago. Since starting to work in Chicago in 2008, POAH has built and renovated close to 800 units of housing in mixed-income buildings in Woodlawn, Grand Crossing, Kenwood and Near West Side.