The City of Trotwood approved an agreement with Gordon Food Services to open a new full-service grocery store after the city’s only supermarket, Foodtown, closed in 2019, leaving residents without a traditional grocery in the community.
The $7 million project will be the first full-service grocery store to open in Trotwood in years. GFS operates a wholesale grocery store located at 5380 Salem Ave. in Trotwood.
The new store, located at 5031 Salem Ave., will have a meats and produce department and offer more than just bulk grocery products, according to Chad Downing, director of the Trotwood Community Improvement Corporation.
Downing said the city had been working with GSF since 2019 when Foodtown announced it would close. To seal the deal, the city entered GFS into its incentive compensation program.
Under the program, the city calculates the local tax withholdings from new employees GFS hires. Then, it pulls a percentage of the withholdings from its non-tax revenue sources and give it back to the company in the form of a grant.
“What we're doing is creating an incentive that says, ‘look, you create more employees, you're going to get more benefits’,” Downing said. “And the ultimate goal of this is to help them be sustainable and successful, especially at the outset.”
The program will last for 10 years, the percentage the company receives over that period will decrease over time.
“And throughout that term, if they have to back off employees for any given reason, whether it's micro or macroeconomic outcomes, they're not going to be penalized for that, but they won't receive as much benefit equally.” Downing said.
The new 52,000 square foot grocery store is under construction near the old Salem Mall site. GSF will hire at least 10 new employees plus transfer 20 employees from the wholesale store it currently operates, according to city documents. It’s expected to open by Fall of this year.
Alejandro Figueroa is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms.
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