PITTSBURGH — The Hazelwood community has been without a grocery store for decades. At one point, locals would sell fresh food right along Second Avenue, but now they are hoping to turn that land into a full grocery store.
“It’s a need not only a want but a need,” said resident, Saundra Cole McKamey.
If you’ve ever driven through the city’s Hazelwood community, you’ve probably noticed there is no grocery store.
“Right now, the average cost for a person to get groceries is like $20 to catch an Uber,” said Pastor Lutual Love of Hazelwood’s Praise Deliverance Church.
A food desert, residents who live in Hazelwood have been forced to drive or carpool to the neighboring communities of Greenfield and the South Side to have access to a grocery store.
“We have corner stores out here, but it doesn’t have what we really need fresh food and produce,” explained Cole McKamey.
But now, Pastor Love of Hazelwood’s Praise Deliverance Church plans to change that. He said that Second Avenue where local community members once ran produce stands will now be the site of Hazelwood’s first grocery co-op.
“The grocery store will be a full-service grocery store 15,000 sq/ft it will have everything that a regular grocery store will have,” Love said.
The plan would include ground-level parking, a grocery store, a credit union, and a wellness center, and up on the rooftop top a biotech farm where the community could grow veggies and fish.
“We have been asking for this for centuries like and decades you know what I mean and right now is the perfect time to do it,” Cole McKamey said.
The pastor said through private and public financing the group will acquire the land from the Urban Redevelopment Authority, and the grocery co-op will likely open in 2025.
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