The Kansas City Council approved a $611,500 support package for the struggling SunFresh grocery store at 31st and Prospect on Thursday, concluding months of negotiations over how to prevent a potential food desert in the city’s east side.
The ordinance, sponsored by Councilwoman Melissa Robinson, restructures the city’s approach to helping the store. The ordinance passed the full council vote of 11 – 0 after Mayor Quinton Lucas engineered a committee substitute deal that passed through the Finance Committee earlier in the week.
This funding represents the latest attempt to stabilize a grocery store as an anchor tenant in the city-owned Linwood Shopping Center, which the city has invested more than $21 million in since 2015.
The approved package divides the funds between $161,500 in rent relief for SunFresh’s operators and $450,000 for settling operational claims. The arrangement includes a six-month check-in requirement where the operator, non-profit organization Community Builders KC, must present detailed future plans.
Owners of other eastside grocery stores questioned why city support isn’t available to them.
“Our grocery store is in the same area,” said Muhammad Abubakar, owner of Happy Foods, located about a mile from SunFresh. “If they get some benefits from that grant, why not we?”
Abubakar, who took over Happy Foods in 2023, told council members he spends $10,000 monthly on security and has invested over $100,000 in infrastructure improvements.
“This is a food desert area, no big chain wants to come here,” Abubakar said. “We have a lot of hurdles and difficulties that we face: security, inflation, sales.”
Councilwoman Robinson explained the distinction in the arrangement with the Linwood Shopping Center and the SunFresh operated by Community Builders.
“We [the city] own the grocery store,” said Robinson. “That is why this is different from other grocery stores that are in the area.”
Robinson, who says she shops at SunFresh herself, described the funding as necessary to “stop the bleeding,” noting the area cannot afford to lose this vital resource. She identified declining sales stemming from safety concerns as the core issue facing the store.
Diane Charity, community advocate and co-founder of KC Tenants, invoked Martin Luther King Jr. in her testimony supporting the store.
“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right,” Charity said. “I’m supporting the SunFresh because it is the right thing to do.”
Marquita Taylor, president of the Santa Fe Area Council, emphasized the importance of keeping the grocery store and said the city needs to address loitering that has plagued the location.
“We cannot lose healthy foods in our community,” Taylor said. “We’re trying to live like everybody else. Please open up, allow them to get what they need, but also work on our little community.”
The SunFresh store has been battling significant challenges, losing $1.3 million in 2023. Recent visitors have reported finding shelves across wide sections of the store completely bare.
Lucas responded to concerns from other grocery operators by framing the city’s responsibility in landlord-tenant terms.
“We are making sure, in this situation, that we are fair in saying, if you are our tenant, we have a special relationship,” Lucas said. “This is not us favoring one business over another. This is us instead making sure we can have a strong relationship between the parties.”
Under the agreement’s terms, if Community Builders fails to present its plans within six months, any remaining funds will be transferred to the city’s Back to Business Grant Program. The store must also provide regular profit and loss statements to the city.
Stan Archie, speaking in support of the funding, reinforced the city’s responsibility as a property owner.
“We are a landlord as a city, and this is a situation where a not-for-profit had made an investment, not to be profitable, but to be valuable to the community,” Archie said. “I’d love for us to say that we’re a quality landlord as well.”
The ordinance takes effect immediately, with the full $611,500 support package expected to help address immediate operational needs while longer-term solutions are developed.
