Atlanta officials have awarded nearly $8.2 million in incentives to bring two grocery stores to low-income areas of the city that don’t currently have easy access to fresh food.
The city’s development authority, Invest Atlanta, has chosen Savi Provisions, an independent chain of neighborhood markets headquartered in Atlanta, to operate a store on Campbellton Road and one downtown. After a monthslong procurement process, Invest Atlanta’s board voted to approve the millions in loans and grants during a meeting Thursday.
Officials said they have been trying for years to woo national grocery chains to these parts of the city without success.
“Time and time again, we have been looking for grocery stores to invest in these areas and we’ve offered incentives, and no one has signed up,” Mayor Andre Dickens, chair of the Invest Atlanta board, told reporters after the funding was approved. “But Savi has stepped up to be able to take on this charge.”
Credit: Mirtha Donastorg
Credit: Mirtha Donastorg
The southwest Atlanta store will be located at 2080 Campbellton Road SW. The downtown location has not been announced. That lease is still being negotiated, but it will be in the Five Points area, according to Paul Nair, CEO of Savi Provisions.
The total funding going to the stores is about $11.5 million. The bulk is coming from Invest Atlanta, but Savi is also getting an additional $2.3 million in loans from two community organizations. Savi is putting in $1 million.
Savi Provisions opened its first store in 2009 in Inman Park and now has 17 locations in metro Atlanta. They are high end, small gourmet markets where people typically pop in for a bottle of wine to bring to a dinner party or to grab a few ingredients they need to cook, but are not full grocery stores.
Besides a store at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Savi does not currently have any locations open south of I-20. In June, the city selected Savi to lease a space near Zoo Atlanta but it is unclear when it will open.
Nair said the two stores announced Thursday will be different from the current Savi locations, from pricing to size to even the name.
The prices will be cheaper than other Savi locations; Nair is aiming to keep costs similar to Kroger. They will also be more than three times as big as Savi’s markets, ranging from 16,000 to 23,000 square feet, which will allow the stores to have produce, meat, seafood and bakery departments.
And they won’t necessarily be called Savi Provisions. While the exact name is still being finalized, Nair said it will likely be Azalea Market powered by Savi.
During the board meeting, Nair said the two stores aren’t about profitability but about giving back to a community that has helped Savi grow.
“The people of Atlanta helped us all the way through, so this is more of giving back,” Nair said.
The stores are slated to open sometime in early 2025 — Nair is aiming for the first quarter while Dickens said sometime in the first half of the year. The city has the lease for the Campbellton location and is currently negotiating the sublease with Savi, which they expect to hand over in the next two weeks.
When they do open, Dickens said the city will need to help market them to make sure they can stay in business and told those at the board meeting to do the same.
“We know they need customers, so when you are in these areas, order from them. … Go there and build a relationship with these people so that we can keep them in business, so that they thrive,” he said.
“And if there’s something that you see that you want improved, treat them as a colleague and say, ‘Hey, you know, this is going well, but this can be improved.’ Don’t blast them on social media trying to take them out. We gotta find another $11 million, that ain’t gonna come easy,” Dickens joked.
City officials have been working for years to address low-income Atlantans’ stark lack of access to fresh produce and healthy groceries. The city has helped invest in neighborhood grocery stores, pop-up markets and a community food center. In 2015, a little more than half of Atlanta residents lived within a half-mile of a fresh food retailer. That increased to roughly 75% by 2020, and the Dickens administration aims to increase it to 85% by 2025.
On Thursday, besides approving the money for Savi’s stores, Invest Atlanta’s board approved a $448,000 grant to support two new pop-up markets that would bring fresh produce to City of Refuge, a nonprofit west of downtown that helps families transition out of crisis, and another at the Thomasville Recreation Center.
— Staff writer Riley Bunch contributed to this report.
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