Chicago’s plan to buy shuttered Aldi store on West Side sparks controversy

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot‘s plans for the city to buy a shuttered Aldi supermarket to address a “food desert’’ on Chicago’s West Side sparked accusations of favoritism as the city offers aid to one struggling neighborhood.

The Chicago City Council Housing Committee gave the Lightfoot administration the authority to buy the store at 3835 West Madison Street, listed for $700,000, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. After Aldi closed its store in mid-October ending 30 years of operation, about 150,000 residents in the West and East Garfield Park and Austin neighborhoods were left with few places to buy groceries.

“This is a strategic opportunity, given the location on Madison Street and the availability of a quality site,” said Mike Parella, project manager of mixed-use development for the Chicago Department of Planning and Development.

The city’s swift incursion into the private market is unusual and aldermen who oppose the plan called on the city to make a policy based on the city’s unprecedented case of trying to acquire shuttered stores and solve crime issues, the main issue for Aldi’s closure.

“I have never seen [the Department of Planning and Development] jump within four months,” said Alderman Ray Lopez of the 15th Ward, one of Lightfoot’s most outspoken Council critics. “Even when all of the same stars are in alignment as they are for this one. Particularly when you don’t have a new tenant at the ready,” he said.

Revitalizing the city’s West Side has been Lightfoot’s longtime priority since she came to office in 2019. The Lightfoot administration’s $200 million of projects to invest in the West and South Side in August were part of her initiative program to spur development in those areas.

Far South Side Alderman Anthony Beale of the 9th Ward, another longtime critic of Lightfoot, said Aldi closed the West Garfield Park location largely due to security concerns, and buying the property from Aldi would reward a company that just pulled out of the community

“What does this solve when you haven’t done anything about the core issue, which is crime?” Beale told the Sun-Times.

Parella told the committee that the city was “looking holistically at the corridor in trying to align funding that would help with any security concerns that may exist” along Madison Street.

Putting aside concerns of favoritism, “we believe that the city playing a role in the acquisition of this site will help maintain what the community wants to see, which is a grocery store at that particular location, which has served the community for the last 30 years,” said Alderman Jason Ervin of the 28th Ward.

The proposal to give the city authority to buy the store could be voted on by the full council this month. The city would buy the site using tax increment financing funds, which could then bring a new grocery store or rehabilitate the property by using funds generated by the tax incremental financing.

Parella said the city is open to two options, but either way, it needs to “act quickly, should an opportunity to purchase the site present itself.”

[Chicago Sun-Times] – Connie Kim