Shop and Save will occupy the long vacant Dominick’s space in South Shore. The Niles-based supermarket chain has bought the entire Jeffrey Plaza shopping center at 71st Street and Jeffrey Boulevard.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday, February 13, announced the completion of a $10 million Tax Increment Financing (TIF) agreement between the City of Chicago and Shop & Save market to redevelop the last vacant Dominick’s in South Shore into a full-service grocery store. The Dominick’s space has been empty since 2013. Residents have since shopped at a Jewel supermarket at 75th and Stony Island or a Save-A-Lot store at 72nd and Stony Island.
Shop and Save has two other stores in Chicago and four in the suburbs.
“Across Chicago, we are working to replace former food deserts with grocery stores and access to fresh food in every community,” said Mayor Emanuel. “This agreement will not just ensure residents of South Shore have a neighborhood grocery store, it will create new jobs and make the community even stronger.”
The new agreement enables Shop & Save to complete the $25 million purchase and rehabilitation of the 8.5-acre Jeffery Plaza shopping center, which housed the last of 15 Chicago Dominick’s stores that closed in 2013. It will also help address a food desert that has impacted nearly 14,000 residents along the east side of the South Shore neighborhood since the grocery store initially closed.
The redevelopment will create an estimated 85 construction jobs and up to 85 permanent jobs within Shop & Save, in addition to the retention of 59 full- and part-time jobs at the other stores in the plaza. Local hiring efforts will be required as part of the TIF assistance.
Shop & Save is owned and operated by Cezary and Eva Jakubowski. The company’s new store is expected to open this fall and will offer a wide range of fresh food choices, including produce, a deli, European-style bakery and a selection of meats and seafood.
In 2013, Mayor Emanuel convened a Grocery Task Force after Dominick’s parent company, Safeway Inc., revealed it was pulling out of the Chicago-area market. The task force worked to ensure every store was bought by a new owner.
From 2011 to 2017, Chicago’s food desert population has decreased by more than 31 percent, based on the number of people who live more than one mile from a store of 10,000 square feet or more that sells produce. Since 2011, the number of city and independently operated farmers’ markets has nearly doubled, and 12 of the 14 city-operated markets now accept SNAP.
The South Shore Dominick’s space was the last of 15 vacant Dominick’s to be occupied.
