Bradenton officials still want grocery store at Rogers Plaza site

BRADENTON -- Efforts to build a shopping plaza at the corner of First Street and 13th Avenue West, which was to be anchored by a Save-A-Lot grocery store, might not be over just yet.

"We are wanting to move forward on the grocery store site to get it cleaned up and plan a course of action that will be successful," said Carl Callahan, city administrator. "It's not like there's been an approval of a site plan, and the current developer won't be available for that."

The developer, Wisconsin-based Endeavor Corp., qualified for federal tax credits in 2012, which spurred city officials to do a ground-breaking ceremony. That's as far as they got.

The Endeavor deal finally collapsed in January, after the city refused to comply with the developer's demand for additional financial and other concessions.

Bradenton Village and the surrounding neighborhoods would be the beneficiaries of a new grocery store. Most residents have to travel miles to the nearest full-service grocery store, including Rodney Jones, Bradenton Village community coordinator.

"The community is very much in support of the grocery store," said Jones. "Four years after the ground-breaking, we still don't have a store. I know there have been a lot of twists and turns and I am not blaming anyone, rather advocating that it still happens. It's still a very socioeconomic-depressed community that desperately needs that grocery store. We were assured it was going to happen, so the community has a pretty sour taste in their mouth with the continued promises and nothing happening."

Callahan said the city council, as well as the Community Redevelopment Agency board, will take up the future of the site on May 4.

"We'll lay out a narrative next week in how do we want to approach this," said Callahan. "We aren't just going to pick someone, though. We need to decide whether to open it back up to developers, but the focus is still on the grocery store."

Although Endeavor is essentially out of the picture, they retain some legal rights, said City Attorney Bill Lisch.

"The ink was dry on those papers and nobody is more disappointed with the absence of the developer," said Lisch. "We kept hitting their curve balls until we finally had a knuckle ball, but we are moving forward."

Mark Young, Herald urban affairs reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7041 or follow him on Twitter@urbanmark2014.

This story was originally published April 28, 2016 at 11:43 PM with the headline "Bradenton officials still want grocery store at Rogers Plaza site ."