Killeen mayor says city close to north Killeen grocery store deal | Business

“We have solved how the store will be designed,” Nash-King said Friday. “We met with all the stakeholders in one room and now the only thing left to do is to fund it.”

She said she spoke to some investors, who she sent over to Scott Connell, executive director of the Killeen Economic Development Corporation.

Nash-King, who is running for reelection in May, said some of those meetings were held either over the phone or by Zoom. She said Killeen was looking into grants and other types of funding, but stressed that those grants be applied only to grocery stores that open in north Killeen.

“I’m just waiting on them to come back and sit down with all of us and we’ll discuss if that’s a viable option for us,” she said.

But according to Connell, whether a grocery store comes to north Killeen or not is largely a business decision that is not directly under the control of city officials.

Nevertheless, Connell said the city of Killeen is in talks with three different grocery store companies, one of them the Tulsa-based Oasis Fresh Market, which Killeen officials have been talking to and about since last April.

Connell met with Oasis and city officials last year in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“We met with a number of folks at the city who were part of the project process to get them up and running in Tulsa and learned what they need and how the public sector was involved in funding a lot of the facility aspects of their building,” Connell said.

In Tulsa, the city owns the building and is the landlord.

Connell said the public sector was very “engaged” in the Oasis project, which was built in a “food desert” area of Tulsa. He said it would be a big investment.

“We may or may not be interested in investing in that kind of capacity here,” he said, explaining that costs were also going up and that Tulsa used a lot of one-time, public money, much of which came as a result of COVID — federal dollars that are no longer available.

He said the potential cost could end up being a multi-million dollar investment.

Connell said Killeen wanted to “chew through this a little bit and see what our appetite really is to do that.”

Connell said they’ve also been talking to two other potential grocery stores.

“But so much of it is the business going through their churning of analysis in terms of getting their financing and getting their upbringing, their sites plans and all that,” Connell said. “So right now, it’s a couple of different options. We don’t make them do it.”

He said the city of Killeen was looking into a variety of different ways that it feels comfortable with getting involved in regards to attracting a grocery store to north Killeen.

“Companies are going through their due diligence, and we’re hopeful that they can choose a path that can work in this market,” Connell said.

It is unclear where a grocery store will go if one comes to north Killeen. However, 38th Street and Rancier Avenue — where a movie theater once stood — remains an option, as the land is still vacant and for sale. Charlie Quisenberry of the Austin-based Edge Realty said last week the company still owned the land, but has not had any talks recently with any grocery stores.

The former H-E-B location on Gray Street downtown was never an option for a new grocery store because of a clause put in the contract by H-E-B preventing it from being a grocery store for 55 years. Also, the former H-E-B store is now operating it as E-Center Killeen, a venue for events.

Councilman Jose Segarra said he was “optimistic” about the possibility of attracting a grocery store to north Killeen, but he also said that he wasn’t sure what Nash-King was talking about as far as them being close to a deal.

“I haven’t had any conversations with the mayor on anything,” he said. “She hasn’t said anything to me.”

Segarra said he was aware that the city of Killeen was in talks with “several” grocery stores, but said the City Council hasn’t been briefed yet.

Councilwoman Jessica Gonzalez, who is also a KEDC board member, said the construction feasibility study, which began around the same time Oasis was being presented to the City Council last year, is still underway.

“There’s been some movement there,” Gonzalez said in a phone conversation Friday.

Gonzalez, who represents much of north Killeen, ran her campaign in 2022 partially on the promise of attracting a grocery store to north Killeen.

She said the city of Killeen has completed site design. “That is definitely progress, so we’re moving in the right direction,” she said.

Gonzalez pointed out that the term “food desert” was often misunderstood.

“It’s more than just access to a grocery store but a grocery store with fruits and vegetables and affordable food options,” she said.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a food desert is an area with limited access to fresh fruit, vegetables and other healthful whole foods, usually found in impoverished areas. The USDA definition adds that the situation is largely due to a lack of grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and healthy food providers.

This is the reason why, despite the existence of smaller grocery stores in north Killeen, the area is considered a food desert.

The food desert issue is a national problem that disproportionately affects Black and brown communities. According to a 2017 USDA report, 12.8% of the national population, or about 39.5 million people, live in food deserts.

A bill was introduced in the House of Representatives in February last year that would provide grant funding for grocery stores to open in under served communities, but so far the measure has not made it past being referred to a subcommittee.

That 20,000-square-foot grocery store potentially coming to west Killeen is Delicias Meat Market, a grocery chain specializing in Hispanic foods.

While a sign has been posted announcing the future build along Stan Schlueter Loop, across the street from a post office, details were scarce on the project.

An employee who answered the phone at the Delicias store on East Veterans Memorial Boulevard in north Killeen said the opening will not be for another year, but no one else would answer questions about it from the Herald.

But when the Herald broke the story last week with a photo of the “Coming Soon” sign, it got a lot of attention online.

It was the Herald’s most-read online story last week, and on the Herald’s Facebook page, received nearly 140 comments and 400 “Likes” and other reactions.

The comments were mixed, yet many were wondering about north Killeen.

“Yet another slap in the face to North, Northwest, and Northeast Killeen,” wrote Jennifer M. Suarez in a comment on the Herald’s Facebook post. “The current Delicias does help people where it is BUT its nowhere enough because everyday staples are still sold at a big mark up (just like O-mart). The money you save on meat just doesn’t offset for most. Its a specialty grocery store. Call it like it is.”

Delicias is one of the smaller grocery stores still in north Killeen — another being O-Mart — but the area has no big supermarkets.

Nash-King stressed that it was important to bring a grocery store to north Killeen as soon as possible because people shouldn’t be driving across the city for a gallon of milk.

“And if it takes the city of Killeen investing in it to get a grocery store here, I know the council will move in that direction,” she said. “And it’s all about revitalizing the downtown of Killeen. You’ve got to have a grocery store. It’s one of the necessities.”

She said that was why it was one of her priorities.

“That’s important to me,” Nash-King said. “And that’s part of having a high quality of life.”