WILMINGTON — The Wilmington City Council and New Hanover County commissioners reached an agreement this week on what would happen to the land the newly funded Northside Food Co-op is slated to be built on, should the grocery store ever close.
READ MORE: County may be asked to pay for food co-op land after backtracking on deed
City council voted 5-1 to direct staff to amend the property deed in the 900 block of N. 10th Street, taking out the clause that would revert the land back to the city if it ceased to be used as a grocery store. Council member Kevin Spears dissented; Charlie Rivenbark was absent from the meeting.
Council agreed to remove the reverter clause and in its stead mandated the county pay the city back the land’s assessed value if the property ceases to be used for its original purpose.
In that scenario, the agreement stipulates the county and city would hire an agreed-upon appraiser to determine the property value. In the event they could not agree on an appraiser, they would choose separate ones. If the appraisals come back differing by more than 15%, the two contractors will choose a third appraiser, whose determination will be final.
The Northside Food Co-op, established with bylaws and a board of directors in 2020, has been pushing for a grocery store on the Northside, considered a food desert. Two years after gaining approval and funding from the county, the City of Wilmington deeded 2.5 acres to the county for construction of the store. Its overall price tag has escalated in recent years, now expected to be around $9 million.
County commissioners were poised to sign off on the MOU certifying the project plan, though a couple commissioners, Dane Scalise and LeAnn Pierce, took issue with the “reverter” clause of the land deed. Scalise and Pierce said they could not support a deal using land they didn’t own, especially if the county was investing millions of dollars into it.
The county’s contribution to the project equals $2.51 million, with $1.5 million provided to cushion the bottom line over the store’s first five years if three months of operating capital falls below $500,000. The latter infusion was added after county staff informed the board that grocery stores are often operating in the red in their start-up years.
The commissioners did approve the MOU, Pierce dissenting, with the understanding the reverter clause would be removed from the deed. They directed county manager Chris Coudriet to work with the city to accomplish this.
At their Monday meeting , county commissioners unanimously approved of the city’s vote for the county to purchase the land instead, should it ever come to that.
“I think the solution that you came up with was a win-win,” Commissioner Jonathan Barfield said to both the county and city managers at the meeting.
However, the Wilmington City Council was not as united.
“Let’s be honest, the city council and the New Hanover County Commissioners don’t have the best report when it comes to stuff like this,” council member Kevin Spears said at the council’s Monday agenda review. “We were always at odds about who does what, who benefits from this and who does that so let’s just be clear about it.”
Port City Daily reached out to Spears asking what situations he was referring to; he responded after press.
“They are mainly money issues, who pays for what, or if the split should be an even split, or even the representation on boards are equal concerning issues,” Spears wrote in a text. “WAVE Transit is a good example. The quarter cent sales tax is another, which coincides with the WAVE Transit funding dilemma.”
Starting in 2016, the transit authority began failing to reach its goals for revenues brought in by rider fares while at the same time requesting additional funding from local governments. In late 2019, then-NHC commissioner Julia Olson-Boseman brought forward a surprise to withdraw its funding from Wave.
Following that, both the city and county leadership approved a resolution to “restructure” the regional public transit system, including gutting the entire board and firing the executive director. A new board was appointed in 2020, made up of mainly county and city officials, and a new director was hired. That same year, county and city appointees were split on a vote to move forward with a redesigned network.
In 2022, voters turned down a quarter-cent transit tax in 2022 that would have provided $65 million to Wave over 10 years. City council members were more reticent to take the vote than commissioners, which were the only ones authorized to add it to the 2022 ballot.
The endowment is providing $6.8 million to the project, while the city is providing the land, with a current tax evaluation of $113,000. The city also provided $145,000 in ARPA funds to the Northside Food Co-op in 2021.
Spears has questioned the county’s intentions for trying to amend the deed, suggesting someone at the county is not betting on having a grocery store.
“I am adamantly opposed to, if this deal didn’t go through I don’t want us to give the county the land,” Spears said at council’s Monday agenda briefing. “I want the land to come back to us for us to do whatever we think that’s best possible for that land.”
He echoed the same disdain at the Tuesday meeting, plainly stating he disagrees with the new solution.
Council member David Joyner expressed he had similar feelings to Spears, yet ultimately voted to approve the transaction as he didn’t want to stand in the way.
“The county was the possessor of the property when they said this was a surprise. They’re the possessor right now, and that makes me tend to agree with Mr. Speers that if they wanted a grocery store, they would have voted for a grocery store,” Joyner said.
One commissioner did attempt to dispel questions on the board’s motives regarding the renegotiation.
“My anticipation is that this grocery store will not fail, but will indeed succeed and do exceedingly well in that part of our community as there is great demand for it,” Barfield said. “And I see it as a way for the partnership to continue with the city and the county as we’re both making any investment, fulfilling a promise that we also made to the citizens on the Northside of our community that we would help build a grocery store.”
Multiple efforts have launched to bring a food co-op to the Northside throughout the years but have failed. An independent group in 1996 collected money from neighbors to buy into the project but it was never completed. Then, in 2003, the City of Wilmington proposed a grocery store to open in the northside by 2005; it never happened.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Coudriet told Wilmington council his staff already began the bid process for the store’s architect, the first step in a process to bring the co-op’s vision to life. The store’s construction is slated to take place in 2025, with an opening by 2026.
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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