On Wednesday, the Dallas city council is set to consider providing incentives for a Tom Thumb supermarket to be built in the southern Dallas’ RedBird business district.
The city’s economic development staff has recommended that the council approve tax incentives amounting to $5.8 million, mostly from property tax abatements and a sales tax grant. The incentives will be subject to certain conditions, including that the store creates at least 90 jobs with an average wage of $15 an hour. The building must be a minimum of 45,000 square feet and open by April 2026.
City council members have long pushed for more grocery stores to be established in southern Dallas. Although Tom Thumb already has branches in Oak Cliff, Duncanville and DeSoto, it has no locations in southern Dallas. The grocery retailer is a well-known Dallas brand, and it has key dominant locations in some of the city’s oldest and upscale neighbourhoods including Lakewood, Preston Hollow and the Park Cities. It has been owned by Idaho-based Albertsons since 2015.
The southern Dallas mall property, bordered by Camp Wisdom and Westmoreland roads and U.S. Highway 67 and Interstate 20, was once a dying property. However, it has been transformed in recent years, thanks to a $200 million redevelopment project that is still ongoing.
The addition of a supermarket is a significant component of the redevelopment project, which was initiated more than seven years ago by Dallas investor Peter Brodsky.
Brodsky noted in a previous interview that a grocery store was a missing amenity for the 450 residents living in newly constructed apartments on the property and the other 1,000 people working in new medical facilities and offices. In the RedBird plans, there is an area designated for a grocery store adjacent to the Palladium RedBird apartments.
Tom Thumb’s parent company, Albertsons, has been investing in the brand by remodeling existing stores and constructing new ones. Currently, the grocery retailer operates 60 stores in Dallas-Fort Worth. It is working with a developer to open a store south of Dallas in Waxahachie and is building its third store in Frisco. In 2019 and 2020, it opened two stores in Dallas, one in Uptown and another near Deep Ellum.
Although Kroger is seeking approval to acquire Albertsons, the deal faces significant hurdles, including opposition from consumer groups concerned about the two dominant national grocers merging and markets becoming less competitive. The D-FW area is one of the markets that will undergo strong antitrust scrutiny by federal regulators reviewing the deal. Both retailers have indicated that they do not anticipate completing the proposed merger until 2024.