Finance Fund Office Manager Jennifer Hunt
As a Finance Fund employee, I was thrilled to attend the recent Kroger Northland Village grand opening on Morse Road in Columbus. As a resident of the community served by the new full-service store, I can report that it has greatly exceeded my neighborhood’s expectations. Not only does the store cater to the diversity of the community, it also created more than 200 jobs for area residents. Walking through it, I felt like a child in the world’s largest toy store. The place is huge – 102,188 sq. ft. – and offers so much more than I could have ever imagined.
I am amazed at the effort that Kroger put forth to actually research the multi-ethnic Northland Village community and provide such a wonderful place to shop. Clearly, the store was designed to cater to the neighborhood’s different nationalities and businesses including: Somali, African American, Asian, Nepali, South American/Latino, American and Italian.
Here are just a few of the highlights:
- At the entrance and upstairs, beautiful murals painted by local artists capture the diversity of the community
- On offer are spices, fruits and vegetables and foods you won’t find in any other Kroger that are native to the different nationalities
- Convenience options include a salad and olive bar, Starbucks, and made-to-order pizza, pasta, sandwiches and sushi and an in-store food cart serving Nepali, Indian and Tibetan cuisine
- There is a section for pets and beauty supplies
- They even sell clothing with inspiring phrases and pictures of children of different ethnicities
- Numerous seating areas inside and out encourage relaxation and conversation, and a second floor area has televisions
- There is even a Little Clinic and large pharmacy with interpreters
Finance Fund saw the need for the store in what was a USDA-designated food desert, and used New Markets Tax Credit financing to attract critical private investment to this project. Finance Fund provided $8,500,000 of federal NMTC allocation and $2,564,103 of Ohio NMTC allocation. In addition, the project received Tax Increment Financing from the City of Columbus for infrastructure. U.S. Bancorp, the investor, provided $1,500,000 of federal NMTC allocation to the project.
If you are in the Northland Village neighborhood, be sure to stop by to see how Finance Fund put New Markets Tax Credit financing to work to enable Kroger to create a truly unique grocery store dedicated to meeting the needs of its local customers.
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