With the growing residential population Downtown and the new activity being seen on a daily basis…the talks of a full-scale grocery store for Downtown have heated up again. I think it is BS when people say the demographics aren’t right, or that a location isn’t there that meets their needs. I won’t bore you with demographic talk, but I will dive into the location part of the discussion.
I’ve got a couple locations that I think would be great for a nice full-scale grocery Downtown. The first one is 7th & Vine. This is about as close to the center of the population (for the center city) as you can get. There are currently two surface lots there and is located 2 blocks from Fountain Square and 1 block from the proposed streetcar line.
My second option would be at Tower Place Mall along 4th Street. The street-level would have to be completely reworked to have direct access, but this could prove to be the rejuvenation that Tower Place needs. This is just 1 block from Fountain Square and about 1.5 blocks from the proposed streetcar line.
Finally there is always the massive surface lots near St. Xavier Church at 7th/8th & Sycamore. This location is in a rapidly growing residential area, and offers lots of readily available land just waiting to be built on. This location though is slightly further away from being central, but is smack dab on the streetcar line.