AUBURN GRESHAM — Six Save A Lot grocery stores across the South and West sides could reopen this fall, nearly two years after parent company Yellow Banana announced plans to renovate them.
West Garfield Park’s Save A Lot, 420 S. Pulaski Road, will have a grand reopening in early September, Sarah Griffin, Save A Lot’s director of corporate communications, said in a statement to Block Club.
“Barring any further project delays,” five more of the Yellow Banana-owned stores could open in the following months, Griffin said.
Save A Lot stores in West Pullman, 10700 S. Halsted St.; South Shore, 7240 S. Stony Island Ave., and South Chicago, 2858 E. 83rd St., are “projected” to reopen in October, Griffin said.
Stores in Auburn Gresham, 7909 S. Halsted St., and West Lawn, 4439 W. 63rd St., could reopen in November, Griffin said.
“We are making great progress and have completed a substantial amount of work across all six stores,” Griffin said. “We are working closely with the appropriate parties to ensure work is moving forward.”
Leaders at Ohio-based Yellow Banana and Save A Lot are partnering with West Side community members to plan a celebration for the West Garfield Park store reopening, Griffin said.
Yellow Banana was approved for $13.5 million in tax-increment financing and another $13 million in New Market Tax Credits and private funding in 2022 to rehabilitate these six Save A Lot stores.
At the time, Yellow Banana officials vowed to improve the “beat to all hell” stores and supply “quality food at affordable prices in an environment that’s ennobling and a structure that’s aesthetically pleasing and clean.”
But none of the locations have permanently reopened nearly two years after Yellow Banana was approved for that funding. Neighbors, local officials and community organizations have said the company has missed multiple deadlines, left stores in disarray and evaded questions.
The West Garfield Park store, under old ownership, was shut down by the city in 2022 after a rat infestation. Yellow Banana took over the business, reopened the store then closed it again in spring 2023 to launch a $2 million renovation.
Leaders at Yellow Banana first said the renovation would take 10 weeks. Months later, they told neighbors the store would reopen in March. It was still closed and boarded up when Block Club visited the store in March.
Company leaders have promised upgrade such as refrigeration units, on-site security, specialty carts for older people and customers with disabilities, security cameras, signs, decor and a rebuild of the building’s front facade, they previously told neighbors.
Multiple projected opening dates also have come and gone for the Auburn Gresham store.
Yellow Banana co-founder Joe Canfield told neighbors in June 2023 the “reimagined Save A Lot” at 79th and Halsted would reopen the following month.
Construction started on the store in June, but “delays with [city] permits” that were later approved stalled the summer opening, a company spokesperson said. Store leaders targeted mid-to-late October 2023 for a new grand reopening, a spokesperson told Block Club at the time.
The fall deadline passed without word from the company.
Save A Lot then announced in January the Auburn Gresham store could reopen in April. Yellow Banana “experienced a number of both construction and equipment delays on the project” but were making good progress, company leaders previously said.
When Block Club visited the South Side store in late March, days before it was expected to reopen, the store was closed and under construction. That reopening date also passed without word from Yellow Banana officials.
The Auburn Gresham store is now projected to open in November.
A similar narrative has unfolded in West Pullman.
Renovations at the West Pullman Save A Lot store were initially projected to begin in summer 2023 “at the latest,” Ald. Ronnie Mosley (21st) previously told Block Club.
But the deadline “came and went,” Mosley said.
Leaders at Yellow Banana then told Mosley they were “targeting” May 1 for the grand reopening of his ward Save A Lot’s store, Mosley previously told Block Club.
The store is now projected to reopen in October.
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