🔨 The Disappearing Neighborhood Grocery Store
The Disappearing Neighborhood Grocery Store | Status on Regional Justice Center at Danforth | History Tour Tickets on Sale | The Week Ahead
With Marathon Monday a mere two weeks away, I want to highlight the great fundraising work of Team Framingham. Started in 2014, Team Framingham is a charity partner for the Boston Marathon.
This year 22 runners are running for five Framingham charities - Framingham FORCE, Jeff’s Place, Hoops & Homework, the Boy’s & Girl’s Club of MetroWest, and United Way of Tri-County. Their collective goal is $150,000. To date, the Team raised $133,699. Absolutely amazing!
To support the runners, please visit the Team Framingham fundraising page.
(As a Board member of Framingham FORCE, I hope you will consider donating to either Luciana Soares Sousa or Jennifer Feaster. FORCE works to end the stigma around the opioid epidemic.)
A big congratulations to the FHS Marching Band for winning the State Championship! This weekend they were named the New England Scholastic Band Association Winds Class A Champions. Bravo!
Have a comment or question? I’d love to hear from you. Email me at mkfeeney@gmail.com
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The Disappearing Neighborhood Grocery Store
Over the six months it seems there is always a news story about new apartments, new grocery store opening, or a store under threat of closure due to said apartments.
In this week’s issue of The Ham’er, I am doing something different. I am taking a deep dive into the locations of markets, trends and potential food deserts.
Framingham used to be the home to a grocery store or market in nearly every neighborhood. Saxonville had Purity Supreme in the Pinefield Shopping Center and Round Up across from St. George’s. Nobscot was home to a Country Fair Star. The Beaver Street-Blandin Street had a Sunshine Country, and Big Buy. The Buckley famously was a Big D. First National had two locations, one on Union Avenue near the Callahan Center and another Downtown near St. Stephen’s. A&P was found on the corner of Waverly and South Streets. Where Whole Foods is today was Farm Stand; Star Market was the site of the Container Store.
Now in the era of Amazon Prime, Instacart and Peapod, what is the landscape of grocery stores in Framingham? Are they still relevant?
New Kids on the Block
Amazon Fresh kicked Barnes & Nobles and Old Navy out of their spots in Shopper’s World. Construction on the new store has already begun. Directly across Route 9 at the old Bed, Bath & Beyond location is slated for a Fresh Market.
BazaAr-West Supermarket, currently located in Trolley Square, is headed down Route 9 to the old Framingham Beer Works. This move was announced a year ago, yet no developments have occurred on the site.
Target is undergoing an overhaul (thus the trailers in the parking lot.), and has significantly expanded their food selection over time.
Whole Foods opened in Sudbury, and the one on Route 9 in Framingham expanded.
Route 9 Vitality
Grocery stores are not placed anywhere. Metrics must show that Route 9 is the best location for grocery stores, and not in the neighborhoods.
During the years-long debate over the future of Nobscot Plaza, many neighbors expressed a desire for a grocery store or a type of food market. The developer told neighbors there was no market for a grocery store in the Nobscot area.
In the years since then, three new grocery stores have opened, with two more on the way within a 4.5 mile radius of Nobscot Plaza. In fact, there are 13 stores within that radius to purchase food. All but 3 stores are located on or near Route 9.
Let’s travel to South Framingham and use Harmony Grove Elementary School as the center point. 15 grocery stores are within a 4 mile radius. However, 5 of those stores are not on Route 9, including Market Basket in Ashland, Roche Bros in Natick, Seabra Foods, and Tesoros Supermarket.
Clearly the cluster around Shopper’s World on Route 9 scored high marks on some statistician’s spreadsheet for being within 5 miles from major locations in Framingham.
But what numbers on a sheet ignore is transportation, socio-economics, and sustainability.
The Transportation Issue
The location of a majority of grocery stores on Route 9 means we have to get into our cars to drive to the store. For many, this isn’t a problem and we do not think twice about loading up our car.
Not everyone has a car. Car ownership percentages aren’t as high on the southside of Framingham as in other areas. While there are 15 grocery stores within a 4 mile radius, all but 3 require public transportation or a car.
The MetroWest Regional Transportation Authority runs bus routes to Shopper’s World, and Market Basket, but they run Monday-Friday once every hour. On Saturdays and Sundays you can use their CatchConnect service from 8am-6pm. Riders are limited to 4 shopping bags.
The new apartments Downtown were built around Transit-oriented development (TOD) zoning. TOD creates dense, walkable, and mixed-use spaces near transit that support vibrant, sustainable, and equitable communities. Putting all grocery stores miles from Downtown, which is not walkable, does defeat the purpose of TOD. As of writing, there is no major supermarket in Downtown Framingham.
Beaver Street… a Potential Food Desert
Over the past year, food prices overall have risen more than 10%. Egg prices, alone, soared 60%, butter rose more than 31% and lettuce jumped 25%, according to Labor Department data through December 2022.
At the beginning of Beaver Street you’ll find Seabra Foods next to a Dollar General. Across the street is a Dollar Tree. Once upon a time the Seabra Market was a Stop and Shop, then a Sunshine Country. In the future it is slated to become yet another apartment complex, and thus closing Seabra Market. It leaves the Dollar Tree open.
A recent study published in American Journal of Public Health by Tufts University researchers discovered:
Dollar stores are now the fastest-growing food retailers in the United States
Food and beverages stocked by dollar stores are typically lower in nutrients and higher in calories, while only a small percentage of such shops carry fresh produce and meats
In rural and low-income areas, people spend on average more than five percent of their food budget at dollar stores
A few weeks ago I compared prices between the Dollar General and Seabra Foods. A dozen eggs at Dollar General was $4.95, Seabra Foods it was $6.19. A gallon of 2% Milk at Seabra was $5.29 and next door it was $3.55. The back of the Dollar General was a giant freezer filled with microwavable products for 75 cents.
While Seabra is more expensive than the Dollar General, once it closes, that neighborhood will become more of a food desert, with the Dollar Tree as its major food supplier.
Seabra Foods is on tomorrow night’s Council agenda.
What Remains of a Local Grocery Store
While the major supermarkets have moved out of neighborhoods, there are smaller markets found around the city. Most of them are specialty markets, like Waverly Market. TJ’s Market, down the street, is under threat with its landlord wanting to tear down the building and build a new one with apartments. TJ’s is supposed to return to that location. But the location was a neighborhood kitchen, one of the last in the Coburnville neighborhood.
Downtown has four butcher shops: Big Boi Meat Market, Monica Meat Market, Rei da Carne and Brothers Meat Market.
Other convenience stores have expanded their offerings to make up for the lack of grocery.
Back to the Original Question…
At the beginning of this piece, I asked if there is still a place for neighborhood grocery stores.
Having to drive everywhere is not making our community more green and sustainable. Yet, we do not have the public transportation system to replace car trips. Is Framingham stunting the growth of public transportation by planning and encouraging stores along Route 9?
By having these stores in a central location, is this equality? It may be equal on a spreadsheet by mileage. But lower socio-economic communities and senior citizens are put at a disadvantage for fresh and nutritious food.
Should Framingham be worried about the expansion of Dollar Stores?
Even in this age of Amazon, neighborhood grocery stores have a place. They provide convenience. They bring equality in the availability of fresh foods. They make a neighborhood as a gathering place, a spot in the community. They are a so-called “third place” that is desperately needed in our city.
What do you think? Would you like a return of neighborhood grocery stores? Or are you okay with driving to Route 9?
Status on Regional Justice Center at Danforth
The Danforth Building is getting another lease on life… the Commonwealth’s Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance has named the Danforth Building as the new Regional Justice Center.
How much will this cost? DCAMM plans on spending $100 million renovating the building to make it into a Regional Justice Center that will replace the District Court on Concord Street and the Juvenile Court on Mt. Wayte Avenue. It will also include the veterans’ court and Framingham Housing Court.
The Council voted at their last meeting to “move that the Mayor is authorized to convey by gift or nominal consideration” to DCAMM the Danforth Building, additionally “the Mayor is further authorized to accept the current Framingham District Court house property on certain adjacent parcels of land to be conveyed from the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance for nominal consideration to the City of Framingham.”
History House Tour Tickets On Sale
Tickets are on sale for the 20th Anniversary Framingham History Center House Tour! There are six houses of various eras and architectural styles on the tour this year. The tour is Sunday, May 21.
Tickets are $35 for non-members, $30 for FHC members.
Purchase your House Tour tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/602678245857
I’ll see you out on the tour!
The Week Ahead
Meeting agendas are linked.
Monday, April 3
7:00 PM: Keefe School Committee
7:00 PM: Disability Commission
7:00 PM: Council Marijuana Ad Hoc Group
Tuesday, April 4
6:00 PM: Council: Appointments Subcommittee
7:00 PM: Council
7:00 PM: Team Framingham
Wednesday, April 5
3:00 PM: Traffic Commission: Traffic Regulation Subcommittee
4:00 PM: Board of Assessors
7:00 PM: Conservation Commission
Thank you for reading. Please share with anyone who may find this of interest. Keep those emails coming!
A very Happy Passover and Easter to those celebrating this week.
See you next Monday.
-Mary Kate
The grocery store question is interesting. I do think we need more local stores in neighborhoods, but a lot of the stores you're talking about moving onto Route 9 - those stores are *expensive*. Food prices continue to climb and adding more grocery stores that are aimed at middle-class and above shoppers doesn't solve the problem of less expensive groceries. But would neighborhood grocery stores solve the food price solution? If neighborhood grocery stores are a solution to a transportation problem, does it solve the issue that healthier food is expensive? Will those stores be able to sell fresher food at a similar cost to the Dollar General or because their client base will be smaller will it be as expensive as a Stop & Shop (honestly, the stop and shops in Framingham should be investigated for price gauging).