Canton, community partners plan southeast grocery, health center

CANTON – A long-awaited grocery store and health center in southeast Canton might be a step closer to reality soon.

The Stark Metropolitan Housing Authority (SMHA) is attempting to transfer 1318 Gonder Ave. SE to either the city or the nonprofit Canton For All People. Canton Mayor Thomas Bernabei said in an email that the potential owner had not been decided.

Rev. Don Ackerman, who leads Canton For All People, described a health center and grocery store combination as a novel concept.

"You can imagine going in for your diabetes appointments but then also being able to go over and get fresh and healthy food right next door," he said.

An estimated $1.5 million to construct and equip the facility is essentially secured, Ackerman added. The city has committed $1 million of Issue 13 neighborhood funds, and several area charities and foundations have pledged to cover the remaining cost.

'There was really no opposition.'

Herman Hill, executive director of SMHA, said he expects HUD to approve the property transfer within 30 to 45 days.

"I believe this decision will be favorable because there was really no opposition from the residents or the community for us to convey the building to Canton For All People," he said.

SMHA built the multi-purpose center in 1975, according to the agency's historical report. Hill said the building was leased to the YWCA for childcare services and has been vacant for about eight years.

A grocery and health center would provide much-needed services, he said: "Currently, those services don't exist in that area."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture identifies southeast Canton as a food desert — a low-income area where a significant number of residents don't have easy access to healthy and affordable food. And the federal Health Resources and Services Administration considers a swath of eastern Canton to be medically underserved.

'Full-scale grocery store'

StarkFresh initially planned to convert the building into a supermarket while leasing it from SMHA, but a partnership evolved with Canton For All People.

Ackerman said he talked with StarkFresh Executive Director Tom Phillips and offered assistance through Canton For All People — the nonprofit development arm of Crossroads United Methodist Church. The church brought in its partners, My Community Health Center and Lemmon Development.

"We drew up architectural plans for the usage. It's about 11,000 square feet," Ackerman said. "What we know we couldn't make work, talking to for-profit grocers, was an 11,000-square-foot market with that kind of investment."

Canton For All People and StarkFresh plan to establish a grocery store in half of the building, and My Community Health Center will operate in the other half.

StarkFresh already operates a grocery store at its Food Justice Campus on Cherry Avenue NE, and Canton For All People has fresh markets in downtown Canton and on Harmont Avenue NE.

"The store will be a hybrid of basically what Crossroads does with their free market and what we do with our grocery store," Phillips said.

The StarkFresh director said the Gonder site will have produce, bread and more free items than what is available at the Cherry Avenue store.

Ackerman said details are being discussed with the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank — a provider for the fresh markets — to allow the giveaway and sale of groceries in the same space.

"We are working with the Akron-Canton Food Bank to develop out a hybrid model," he said. "It'll be the only one like this in the state that we know of."

The annual care and maintenance of the grocery store is expected to cost $39,312. That should be covered for the next 10 years by an annual gift of $44,000 from Crossroads United Methodist Church, Church of the Lakes, Faith United Methodist Church, and the Tuscarawas District of the United Methodist Church.

Ackerman said the store revenue would be deposited in an escrow account managed by a community advisory board. The board, to be created after the property is obtained, would guide any future development of the center and surrounding area.

"But that's made possible by these churches coming together and taking the overhead cost away for the next 10 years," he said.

Health care center

What the city refers to as the Canton Invest Health Project is the result of work started in 2016, Bernabei said.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Philadelphia-based Reinvestment Fund awarded $60,000 to Canton for health research as part of an initiative called Invest Health. Most of the money funded team members' travel to national seminars or community engagement that helped develop current plans, Bernabei said.

The planning grant "was designed to bring diverse leaders from mid-sized cities together to develop new strategies to leverage private and public investments for neighborhoods facing barriers to better health," he stated.

The health facility was planned for the Edward "Peel" Coleman Community Center. However, former Deputy Mayor Fonda Williams informed City Council last fall that the Gonder Avenue location was a better fit because it would address "two critical needs of the community."

My Community Health Center is a federally funded facility that provides care to patients regardless of their ability to pay and offers a sliding fee scale. CEO Terry Regula said the Gonder location first would offer primary care services.

"And then, as we build success there, in year two we're planning to put women's health there as well," she said.

A nurse practitioner would work in the building for the first year, and a physician practitioner would be added later, if needed.

"When we're at full capacity, we'll have about 3,000 patients from the community," Regula said. "I would be delighted if we could serve 3,000 patients at that site."

Residing in southeast Canton wouldn't be necessary to receive treatment, but there is a need for health care in that area, she said. The center's Seventh Street location serves about 700 people from the city's southeast side.

Regula plans to host community meetings if the building is released by HUD and would like to employ area residents at the health center.

"We just want it to be something really wonderful and that the community can feel that they're a part of it," she said.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Canton, community partners plan southeast grocery, health center