Bing defends Whole Foods tax breaks

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Detroit officials today staunchly defended providing tax breaks to help build a Whole Foods Inc. store in Midtown, which bucks the trend of national grocers who bypass the city and stay in the suburbs.

“I am going to do what is right for the entire community,” Mayor Dave Bing said at a press conference this morning about the Whole Foods store. “I am not working for an individual or a corporation.”

The Austin, Texas-based grocer made it official Wednesday that it would build a 20,000-square-foot store on the northwest corner of Mack and John R. in the shadow of the Detroit Medical Center. Plans are to open the store — which is smaller than most of Whole Foods’ 309 stores nationwide — in early 2013.

City officials and community leaders praised Whole Foods’ move at the Midtown press conference, which was full of supporters who gave hearty applause when Whole Foods official Red Elks Banks was introduced.

“This is a real pleasure,” said Bing, who praised the community and political effort to bring the grocer to the inner city.

But some members of the Chaldean business community are critical of the potential tax breaks given to the project. Whole Foods officials said any potential tax breaks would go to the private developer, Peter Cummings, and not the national grocer.

According to information obtained by the Southfield-based Chaldean News, the project might get up to $4.7 million in state and city of Detroit tax credits, as well as support from private foundation money. The Chaldean News obtained emails about the Whole Foods deal through a Freedom of Information Act request that discussed the potential deal.

The emails were sent as recently as June by officials at the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and the developer of the Midtown site.

Martin Manna, co-founder of the Chaldean News and executive director of the Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce, says while he is happy Whole Foods is coming to Detroit, many independent grocers are not given the same tax breaks.

But George Jackson, president and CEO of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., said today that at least some independent grocers are located in commercial projects that likely did get some type of tax credits.

“We offer no apologies to meet the needs of our citizens,” Jackson said. “Detroiters have the same right to shop in a national grocer just like people in other cities.”

An estimated half-million Detroiters live in neighborhoods characterized as “food deserts,” areas that require residents to travel more than twice as far to reach a full-service grocer than an alternative — and often less healthy — food supplier, according to a 2009 study sponsored by the DEGC.

About 80 full-service stores exist in the city, but there is an estimated $200 million in unmet demand, said the report, which observed that money is instead spent by city residents in the suburbs.

Whole Foods may soon be joined by Meijer Inc., which has signed a letter of intent to lease a store that will built in a planned shopping complex on Eight Mile and Woodward Avenue. The discount grocer Aldi Inc. has two stores in Detroit.

Whole Foods has five stores in Metro Detroit — two in Ann Arbor and one each in Rochester Hills, Troy and West Bloomfield Township.

Whole Foods has been adding Metro Detroit-based suppliers in recent months — such as Detroit granola and snack maker Simply Suzanne and McClure’s Pickles, which is based both in Detroit and Brooklyn, N.Y, and Midtown’s Avalon International Breads.

Whole Foods generally targets areas with populations that are affluent and educated, and Midtown, just north of downtown, increasingly matches that description. The area has the city’s highest rate of income per acre at $231,961, according to a 2010 study by Social Compact, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that gathers data to help spark urban development. The study shows Midtown also has the highest average household income of new Detroit homebuyers at $113,788, followed by downtown at $111,509 and Indian Village at $111,200.

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