Plans are in the works to reopen a Save A Lot in Gresham two years after it closed its doors.
Alderman David Moore announced plans for Cleveland-based Yellow Banana to run the store under the Save A Lot name through a licensing agreement, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Yellow Banana currently operates six other Save A Lot locations across Chicago under a similar agreement.
The Black-owned company hasn’t made an official offer for the store at 7908 South Halsted Street, but it expects to proceed with Moore’s support.
The Auburn Gresham neighborhood, more commonly known simply as Gresham, is located on Chicago’s South Side. In addition to the Save A Lot, Gresham also lost a CVS drugstore across the street and an Aldi at 7627 South Ashland Avenue. At the time of the exits, Moore criticized the companies for leaving the community.
“It’s about discrimination,” Moore said at a press conference last month. “On the South and West sides of Chicago, there’s one store for every 110,000 people. That’s a problem dealing with equity.”
Yellow Banana operates 38 Save A Lot stores, including the six Chicago-area stores in West Garfield Park, West Lawn, Woodlawn, South Chicago, Calumet Heights and Washington Heights. Yellow Banana operates stores in areas that are considered economically disadvantaged, owner Michael Nance told the outlet.
“I know in Chicago, the Save A Lot banner has really overstayed its welcome in many respects,” Nance said. “They left with virtually no heads-up to the community. But me and my business partners, we looked at this as an opportunity.”
According to Nance, Yellow Banana plans to renovate the shuttered Gresham Save A Lot store with the help of local grant funding and private investors.
Residents who felt burned by Save A Lot’s exit from their community expressed doubts about keeping the store name and branding, but Nance clarified that it would be completely owned and operated by Yellow Banana.
“I would say our plan right now is to brand this as a Save A Lot store,” Nance told the outlet. “We do believe in the overarching mission of the brand, even if we think they’ve dropped the ball tremendously.”
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