CANTON — A long-awaited grocery store and health center in southeast Canton may soon be closer to reality.
The Stark Metropolitan Housing Authority (SMHA) is attempting to transfer 1318 Gonder Ave. SE to town or Canton For All People non-profit. Township Mayor Thomas Bernabei said in an email that the potential owner had not been chosen.
Reverend Don Ackerman, who leads Canton For All Peopledescribed a combination of health center and grocery store as a new concept.
“You can imagine going to your diabetes appointments, but also being able to pick up fresh, healthy food right next door,” he said.
An estimated $1.5 million to build and outfit the facility is essentially secure, Ackerman added. The city has committed $1 million in neighborhood funds for Number 13, and several area charities and foundations have pledged to cover the remaining cost.
“There really was no opposition.”
Herman’s Hillexecutive director of SMHA, said he expects HUD to approve the transfer of ownership within 30 to 45 days.
“I think this decision will be favorable because there has really been no opposition from residents or the community for us to hand over the building to Canton For All People,” he said.
The SMHA built the multipurpose center in 1975, according to the agency’s report historical report. Hill said the building was leased to the YWCA for child care and had been vacant for about eight years.
A grocery store and health center would provide much-needed services, he said: “Currently those services don’t exist in this area.”
The United States Department of Agriculture identifies southeast Canton as a food desert — a low-income area where a significant number of residents do not have easy access to healthy and affordable food. And the Federal Administration of Health Resources and Services considers part of the eastern township to be medically underserved.
“Complete Grocery”
StarkFresh initially predicted to convert the building into a supermarket while leasing it to SMHA, but a partnership evolved with Canton For All People.
Ackerman said he spoke with StarkFresh executive director Tom Phillips and offered help through Canton For All People, the nonprofit development arm of Crossroads United Methodist Church. The church brought in its partners, My Community Health Center and lemon development.
“We’ve drawn up architectural plans for the use. It’s about 11,000 square feet,” Ackerman said. “What we know we couldn’t make work, talking to for-profit grocers, was an 11,000 square foot market with that kind of investment.”
Canton for all and StarkFresh plan to establish a grocery store in one half of the building, and My Community Health Center will operate in the other half.
StarkFresh already operates a grocery store at its Food Justice campus on Cherry Avenue NE, and Canton For All People has fresh produce markets in downtown Canton and on Harmont Avenue NE.
“The store will be a hybrid of what Crossroads does with its open market and what we do with our grocery store,” Phillips said.
The StarkFresh manager said the Gonder site will offer free produce, bread and more items than are available at the Cherry Avenue store.
Ackerman said details are being discussed with the Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank — a vendor for fresh produce markets — to allow groceries to be donated and sold in the same space.
“We are working with the Akron-Canton Food Bank to develop a hybrid model,” he said. “It will be the only one like this in the condition we know of.”
Annual upkeep and maintenance of the grocery store is expected to cost $39,312. This is expected to be covered for the next 10 years by an annual donation of $44,000 from Crossroads United Methodist Church, Church of the Lakes, Faith United Methodist Church, and Tuscarawas District of The United Methodist Church. .
Ackerman said revenue from the store would be deposited into an escrow account managed by a community advisory board. The council, which will be created after the property is obtained, will guide any future development of the center and surrounding areas.
“But it was made possible by bringing these churches together and reducing overhead for the next 10 years,” he said.
Health center
What the city calls the Canton Invest Health Project is the result of work started in 2016, Bernabei said.
the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Philadelphia-based company Reinvestment funds donated $60,000 to Canton for health research under an initiative called Invest in health. Most of the money funded team members’ trips to national seminars or community engagement that helped develop current plans, Bernabei said.
The planning grant “was designed to bring together diverse mid-sized city leaders to develop new strategies to leverage private and public investments for neighborhoods facing barriers to better health,” he said. .
The health facility was planned for the Edward “Peel” Coleman Community Center. However, former deputy mayor Fonda Williams city council informed last fall that the Gonder Avenue location was more suitable because it would meet “two essential needs of the community”.
My community health center is a federally funded institution which provides care to patients regardless of their ability to pay and offers a sliding fee scale. CEO Terry Regula said the Gonder site would offer primary care services first.
“And then as we build success there, in year two, we plan to put women’s health there as well,” she said.
A nurse practitioner would work in the building for the first year, and a medical practitioner would be added later, if needed.
“When we are at full capacity, we will have around 3,000 patients from the community,” Regula said. “I would love it if we could serve 3,000 patients at this site.”
Residing in southeast Guangzhou would not be required to receive treatment, but there is a need for health care in that area, she said. The Center’s Seventh Street location serves approximately 700 people on the southeast side of town.
Regula plans to hold community meetings if the building is vacated by HUD and wants to employ area residents at the health center.
“We just want it to be something really wonderful and for the community to feel part of it,” she said.
