Yellow Banana Partners With Chicago, Illinois, for Community Development Grant; Michael Nance Comments
CHICAGO, IL - Having a strong retail footprint is clearly beneficial to any city, and Chicago, Illinois, just proved it. Mayor Lori Lightfoot recently announced that the city would be providing a $13.5 million Community Development Grant to Yellow Banana, the owner and operator of Chicago area Save A Lot stores. With this grant, the company will invest in significant upgrades to its existing stores, as well as to reopen a location in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood that closed in 2020.
“We are exceedingly grateful to Mayor Lightfoot and the City of Chicago for this generous grant and their investment in the South and West Side neighborhoods of Chicago,” said Michael Nance, Co-Founder of 127 Wall Holdings, the owner of Yellow Banana. “We know how critical access to high-quality food at affordable prices is in many of these neighborhoods—I myself having been raised in a community with many similarities—and we are honored to be able to serve them. By updating these stores both inside and out and continuing to source fresh, affordable food at prices working families can afford, we can deliver a dignified, first-rate shopping experience for local families. We are committed to the wider Chicago community and look forward to finding even more ways to better serve those who live here.”
The City’s grant, combined with other financing and funding from Yellow Banana, will bring approximately $26 million in investment into six locations in underserved communities throughout the city’s south and west sides, according to a press release. Yellow Banana currently owns and operates 38 stores in Cleveland, Ohio; Chicago; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Jacksonville, Florida; and Dallas, Texas. The grant furthers Yellow Banana’s efforts to partner with major cities in addressing food deserts and healthy food access in underserved communities.
Capital investments will be used to purchase the underlying real estate for six of the seven locations in Chicago as well as to complete full internal and external remodels, including new flooring, lighting, HVAC, interior and exterior painting, new décor and signage, and more. The press release stated that remodels will begin this fall, as well as the reopening of the Auburn-Gresham Save A Lot by the year’s end.
For more comments on the announcement, check out the press release here. ANUK will be hot on the trail of other retail players, so stay tuned.
