Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to clarify the police facility within the Neighborhood Market.
Residents of Vine City, an often underserved and majority Black neighborhood just west of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, held a vigil in late 2022 after their main source of fresh food was snuffed out in a fire.
The neighborhood’s Walmart Supercenter along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive was indefinitely closed after a December fire that investigators ruled was arson, which thrust the area back onto food desert lists. City leaders said they pushed Walmart to find a way to reopen the store.
Fast-forward 16 months and hundreds of Vine City residents gathered Wednesday to celebrate rather than mourn.
The Walmart Supercenter became the company’s first to be converted into a Walmart Neighborhood Market, providing neighbors access to more fresh food options than they had before. The 75,000-square-foot location is nearly double the size of Walmart’s typical Neighborhood Market and boasts a full-service deli and money center alongside an expanded bakery and pharmacy.
The store’s grand re-opening was celebrated by community leaders Wednesday with an event featuring food tents, dancing mascots and the city’s top brass.
“One of the gifts you have given us today is clean, fresh food in our own neighborhood,” said Rev. Caroline B. Terry with Friendship Baptist Church, receiving claps and “amens.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
The ordeal highlights how many Atlanta neighborhoods, especially those historically overlooked or marginalized, are one incident away from regressing into a food desert.
A 2022 string of arsons also claimed a Walmart Superstore along Howell Mill Road and exacerbated fears of crime that permeate Vine City and other Westside neighborhoods. The incidents prompted the city to incorporate Atlanta Police Department office space into the new Neighborhood Market, which Mayor Andre Dickens said would help ensure the area’s vital food source is not threatened.
“(We don’t want) it to close because of crime, theft or because of the perception of (crime),” he said. “Just their presence will be helpful.”
‘This is our Walmart’
Vine City ranks among the city’s earliest and most diverse neighborhoods.
The wealthy and predominantly white enclave shifted to majority African American after the city’s Great Fire of 1917 forced successful Black residents from other neighborhoods, namely Sweet Auburn. The area’s demographics quickly changed during the following decades. Vine City also saw de-population like many other intown neighborhoods.
By 2022, more than 85% of the neighborhood’s 4,200 residents were Black, according to data from the Atlanta Regional Commission. About 40% of Vine City residents live below the poverty line — more than double the citywide rate.
Walmart officials said the new Neighborhood Market is not only a pivotal food access point, but it’s a much-needed job center for its neighbors. It will employ more than 135 workers, and Walmart donated $12,500 to a half-dozen Atlanta nonprofits Wednesday.
“(The Neighborhood Market) was custom designed specifically based on what we learned from community meetings,” Limark Tucker, senior director and market manager overseeing the Vine City Walmart, said. “Vine City has clear needs, and we listened.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Outside of a few corner grocers and discount stores, the Neighborhood Market is the largest source of fresh food for several Westside neighborhoods and the Atlanta University Center’s roster of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. It’s among many areas of the city that predominately relies on a single business for multiple vital goods and services.
Earlier this year, the Walgreens in downtown’s historic Olympic Building closed, leaving the city center without a standalone pharmacy, grocery or convenience store. Last September, a newly opened Publix on Hank Aaron Drive in Summerhill was forced to close for a week after a crane truck fell through the top level of its connected parking deck.
Violent crime has long dogged Vine City. Despite the city touting a more than 20% reduction in homicides across the city in 2023, neighborhood advocates have gunfire and shootings remain a common occurrence.
Dickens, who lives in Collier Heights, about five miles west of the new store, said it’s incumbent upon the city and its police officers to make residents feel safe, adding that the new Neighborhood Market is a key community asset that needs support.
“We don’t want to just open this up and then it close because people don’t shop at it,” he said. “… This is our Walmart, right?”
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
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