Dallas Lures Tom Thumb to Food Desert

Other parts of North Texas take groceries for granted but southern Dallas has large food desert areas where groceries are miles away.

After years of trying to lure full-service grocery stores, the Dallas City Council Wednesday unanimously approved $5.8 million in grants and tax breaks to open a Tom Thumb store at the Red Bird Mall redevelopment project in one of those food deserts.

The store site used to be parking lots at the former Southwest Center Mall on Camp Wisdom Road and Westmoreland Road near Interstate 20 and US 67.

The old mall renamed Red Bird now has new stores, a big new apartment complex and two big medical employers that add up to many on-site customers.

Instead of renovating one of the smaller, old abandoned grocery buildings in the area, Wes Jackson, Southern Division President of Tom Thumb’s parent company Albertson’s, said Red Bird offers the opportunity to build new from the ground up.

“Where we can put all the amenities of Tom Thumb in there in a bright, vibrant development. That is why we chose this corner. That’s why now it works,” Jackson said.

The city’s incentive was also part of the formula that Jackson said the company needed to make business sense. Jackson said the new 50,000-square-foot store would be larger than the nearest Tom Thumb in Dallas on Hampton Road south of Jefferson Boulevard. The project developer will spend around $15 million to construct the building Tom Thumb is leasing.

Not counting the cost of inventory, Tom Thumb will spend around $10 million more to finish the store out, with more than half of that coming from city incentives.

“It’s a lot of money to pay for a grocery store,” Council Member Cara Mendelsohn said. “I know we offered $3 million at one point and didn’t have any takers.”

Mendelsohn said the city has invested about $67 million altogether in recent years in grants and loans for the Red Bird redevelopment to help lure the apartments, stores and other businesses now there.  

“We need the grocery store and I’m going to support it, but I’m not going to support anything else that comes forward in this area. I think there are many areas in every one of our districts that need significant investment,” Mendelsohn said.

Southern Dallas City Council members had sharp replies for Mendelsohn.

Councilman Tennell Atkins who represents the mall site said southern Dallas decayed as Uptown and downtown Dallas received much greater city support.

“We need billions of dollars in the southern part of Dallas. I’ve spent a decade of my life trying to build the southern part of Dallas,” Atkins said.

Councilman Adam Bazaldua agreed.

“We can’t necessarily talk about how much we’re spending now without talking about how much we didn’t spend in our past,” Bazaldua said. “This is about historical neglect. We didn’t get here by accident.”

Councilman Jaime Resendez said success of the Red Bird project so far shows that incentives worked.

“I think this is a great example of what can happen when the city does invest in long-neglected communities in righting the wrongs of our city,” Resendez said.

Developer Peter Brodsky said the extremely successful Starbucks that opened at Red Bird in 2018 is an example of how Tom Thumb may perform.

Brodsky said attracting businesses has been challenging because there are no recent comparable performance figures for similar stores in the immediate area.

“Unless the incentive is given to create the comp, you can’t start that virtuous cycle,” Brodsky said.

Councilman Casey Thomas who represents the neighborhood immediately north of Red Bird said the Tom Thumb will establish a model for success that he too long sought for residents, to replace stores they lost years ago.

“This is your reward for staying in Oak Cliff. They could have moved to some of those surrounding suburbs, but they didn’t,” Thomas said.

The store is obligated to create at least 90 jobs. It has a 15-year lease with extension options. It is expected to open by 2025 after Wednesday’s City Council action.