Jere Downs, and Grace Schneider

The Courier-Journal

City residents will lose another urban grocery as the Kroger in Old Louisville closes by the end of January. It will be the fifth grocery to call it quits in recent months in lower income neighborhoods with scant access to fresh produce and groceries.

"Kroger is going to close the store at 924 S. 2nd St. on Jan. 28 at 6 p.m.," company spokesman Tim McGurk said Friday. "Kroger has been trying to renew the lease for another year. The landlord has refused those offers and sent us a letter to be out of the property by the end of February."

Starting Sunday, the store will reduce its hours and be open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily until the closure.

Kroger refused to sign a five-year lease deal to stay in Old Louisville, the building's owner said Friday. The Ohio Teachers Retirement System had sought to sell the property with Kroger remaining inside as a stable tenant, pension fund spokesman Nick Treneff said in a statement.

The pension fund "offered Kroger a five-year lease renewal; however, the grocery operator rejected the offer," Treneff said. "We would love to market the property with a long-term tenant in place. The pension fund expects to continue the sales effort, notwithstanding Kroger’s decision to leave."

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While Louisville's supermarket crisis expands, the Old Louisville building remains for sale for $1.6 million. The 90 workers at the store will be offered jobs elsewhere at Kroger with the same wages and benefits, McGurk said.

Mayor Greg Fischer looks to lure another grocer into the space, spokesman Chris Poynter said Friday.

"The mayor is disappointed in this decision and what it means to the residents of Old Louisville, downtown and surrounding neighborhoods," Poynter said. "Our economic development team has been working with Kroger ... other potential grocery operators and neighborhood leaders for several months and will continue to do so."

Shenae Gardner, an Old Louisville resident, said she and most of the people she knows who live or work nearby regularly shop at the Second Street store.

"I think it sucks that they're closing this store," Gardner said. "It's very convenient for a lot of people, especially people who are not mobile and can't get around very easily. I just think it's really unfortunate that we always have to find new ways to survive and provide for our families."

As Kroger folds up shop on Second Street between Smoketown and Old Louisville, grocery seekers in and around downtown will be forced to travel at least two miles more to stock their pantries. That includes the Kroger on Central Boulevard near Churchill Downs, another on Goss Avenue near Eastern Parkway or a third on Broadway and 27th Street in west Louisville.

Samon Coward said she relies on the Second Street location to pick up prescriptions for her mother. Other Kroger stores, Coward said, are either too far away or too expensive.

"They're a little higher in their prices and she's on a fixed income, so we'll just have to figure something out," Coward said.

Metro Councilman David James, whose District 6 includes several blocks near the store, described the closing as “horrible” and “devastating news,” because the store’s customer base includes the highest concentration of senior citizens living in high-rise facilities in the state. Those in Old Louisville have relied on the store for their groceries and prescriptions and “many of them don’t have access to transportation,” James said.

Kroger, James said, has offered the standard alternatives for his constituents – going to the next nearest stores at 27th and West Broadway and Third Street and Central Avenue. But many people would be forced to use cabs or TARC buses to do their shopping, and that’s a big obstacle for those with limited mobility.

“Just because it’s close doesn’t mean it’s easy to get to,” James said, adding that he will urge the mayor and his economic development team to work with Kroger to find a new location in the neighborhood.

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Metro Councilwoman Barbara Sexton Smith, a Democrat newly elected to represent District 4, which includes the store, echoed James' concern for the hardship the closing will pose for nearby residents. She and her family frequent the location.

"This represents the fourth grocery store to close in our urban service district this year. Access to healthy food is a basic human right and we must be vigilant in meeting the needs of everyone," Sexton Smith said.

The small Kroger store near Spalding University is the latest retailer to withdraw from the city's urban core. It follows the failure of a family-owned Pic Pac last month in the Portland neighborhood, the closure of a Kroger in Shively in November, and the end of the First Link grocery in Phoenix Hill last April. In another blow to urban grocery shoppers, Wal-Mart withdrew plans for a Super Center on Broadway at 18th Street last fall.

At 26,410 square feet, the Old Louisville Kroger is dwarfed by the grocery chain's newer, larger stores in the outer suburbs beyond the Watterson Expressway.

While closing older holdings in walkable neighborhoods, Kroger's been on a building binge in the last year. It demolished and rebuilt the Holiday Manor Kroger on Brownsboro Road and opened a new Kroger Marketplace on Dixie Highway. Work continues on a new supercenter on State Street in New Albany, and the grocer also has announced plans for another large store on Ind. 62 near Interstate 265 in Jeffersonville.

That growth is part of a three-year, $150 million Kroger expansion in Louisville, McGurk said. Of Old Louisville, he added, "Kroger opened this store in 1980 and the company appreciates the 37 years that it was able to serve the Old Louisville community from this location."

Asked in an email about the business case for a one-year lease compared to a five-year commitment, McGurk did not immediately respond Friday.

Jere Downs can be reached at (502) 582-4669, JDowns@Courier-Journal.com and Jere Downs on Facebook. Reporter Danielle Lerner contributed to this story.

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