Hazelwood looks to develop co-op grocery store, urban farm
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Some residents in Pittsburgh’s Hazelwood neighborhood are pushing for a new co-op grocery store in their community.
Lutual Love, pastor of Hazelwood’s Praise Deliverance Church, is spearheading an effort to bring a community-owned and operated grocery store to the neighborhood. He said public and private developers constructing other projects in the area haven’t responded to the community’s pleas for a grocery store in their neighborhood, which doesn’t currently have one.
“The community has been calling for a grocery store,” he said. “The community residents decided to come together to try to get a grocery store ourselves.”
They’re eyeing a site at Hazelwood and Second avenues, which they hope to acquire from the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority as the project advances, Love said.
The plans include ground-level parking, a grocery store and a biotech farm on the roof where they could grow vegetables and fish, Love said.
The store would be owned and operated by its employees.
“It’s a community-led project,” City Councilwoman Barb Warwick, D-Greenfield, said. “The vision is to have a full-service grocery store in Hazelwood. It’s something that’s been in the works for a couple years now.”
“I’m very excited about this project,” Warwick said. “I think Hazelwood deserves a grocery store.”
Warwick and Love said they’re working with other partners to secure financing and potentially leverage a tax credit program to move the project forward. Love said several local organizations and businesses have voiced support for the effort, which he estimated would cost between $21 million and $24 million.
Love said he’s working to establish a community steering committee over the next couple of months to advance their efforts.
He touted the idea of having community members bring the project to fruition and take ownership of it, rather than have an outside company build a store that may not properly cater to the community’s needs and desires.
“It’d be better if we could own the store ourselves, if the community could own the store,” he said. “Then the community could have an investment — not just meeting needs as far as having food access, but an investment and ownership and pride in what we’re doing, providing food for ourselves.”
A community meeting on the project is scheduled to be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Propel Hazelwood on Glenwood Avenue.