The Birmingham City Council on Tuesday approved a $600,000 incentive package to help reestablish a grocery store at the Heritage Park Towne Center in the Woodland Park neighborhood.

The measure is part of a longstanding effort by city leaders to provide more access to fresh produce to Birmingham residents, nearly 70% of whom live in areas designated as food deserts by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“Building equity in our community, especially as it relates to food insecurity, must start with ensuring healthy, affordable food options for residents that live in one of Birmingham’s designated food deserts,” said Councilor Crystal Smitherman, whose district includes the proposed store.

The building, which used to be a Save-A-Lot, has been empty since September 2023.

The incentive package approved Tuesday will go to Dollar General, which will renovate the location and set up a DG Market, a store format that offers fresh produce, dairy products and fresh meats.

This would be the third location operating under the DG Market name operating in the city, joining locations on 1st Ave. N. in East Lake and on 3rd Ave. W near Rising West-Princeton.

That’s good news for residents living nearby. According to the USDA’s Food Access Tracker, the Census tract that includes the proposed DG Market has a relatively high number of households, 8%, without vehicles that are more than half a mile from a supermarket. The tract is also designated as low income.

In recent years, city officials have worked to combat the prevalence of food deserts in the city. Mayor Randall Woodfin in December 2021 announced a $2 million grocery store recruitment plan focusing on West Birmingham and other underserved communities.

In April 2022, the council agreed to provide $640,000 from the plan to help open the Food Giant in the Five Points West area.

The incentive package approved Tuesday isn’t the first the council has put into the grocery store anchoring Heritage Park Towne Center.

The city in 2010 offered $650,000 in tax rebates over six years to get the Save-A-Lot in the location, originally a Food World that closed in 2007.

In 2021, the council approved a loan and incentives program to keep the store from closing as Save-A-Lot locations throughout the country were shutting their doors. The package included a $1 million 24-month loan at 3% interest as well as up to $750,000 in tax rebates over the next 10 years.

“Fortunately, the way our incentive agreements are traditionally structured for grocery stores is that they’re performance based, so they’re paid in arrears, which is the case for Save-A-Lot. So given that there’s no performance, there’s no additional incentive to be paid,” Cornell Wesley, director for the Department of Innovation and Economic Opportunity, told the council Tuesday.

Red Rock Realty Group has been working with the building owner and city staff to get the space filled.

Tommy Joyce, an executive vice president with the group, said the DG Market is the only grocery opportunity that they’ve seen in marketing the space.

“It’s been a challenge, so hopefully we’re at the point to move forward with them,” Joyce told the council Tuesday.

After the vote, several council members thanked Wesley and Red Rock Realty for their work in getting fresh produce back in the neighborhood.

“I really appreciate it. I’m so so so thankful for it. I really, really am, like I can’t tell you how thankful I am for it,” Smitherman said.

In other business, the council:

• Approved a three-year agreement for CivicPlus to provide the city’s online and smartphone application, SeeClickFix, which allows citizens to report code enforcement and other non-emergency issues by calling 311. The contract is for $173,282.
• Approved a three-year agreement with EvidenceIQ to provide ballistics analysis equipment and software to the police department at a cost of $69,997.

Heard an update from the mayor on the police recruitment efforts that the council approved in October. Since then, 111 individuals have applied for positions — 52 of those have passed their physical fitness test and are being vetted for the hiring process. This is in addition to the 28 recruits currently enrolled in the Birmingham Police Academy’s class that began in November.