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PHILADELPHIA-In a second grant from the state's Fresh Food Financing Initiative, Gov. Ed Rendell and Dennis Yablonsky, secretary of community and economic development, provided $500,000 to support development of a Fresh Grocer supermarket at Progress Plaza, the 37-year-old, 66,000-sf shopping center under redevelopment at Broad and Oxford streets. Plans call for a 40,000-sf Fresh Grocer anchor. Similar funding was recently provided for construction of a Shop Rite on Island Ave.

The financing initiative, established in Sept. 2004, was designed to encourage the development of supermarkets and other fresh-food retailers in urban and rural communities that lack adequate access to supermarkets in underserved, disadvantaged neighborhoods throughout the state. Yablonsky says this project will not only create jobs in … Yorktown, but also "promote healthy living by providing Pennsylvanians with neighborhood access to nutritious and affordable food."

Progress Plaza, owned by locally based Progress Investment Associates Inc., is the country's first African-American owned and developed shopping center. Redevelopment, at an estimated cost of $25 million, calls for expansion to 70,000 sf of retail in addition to the supermarket and 19,000 sf of office space.

The Fresh Grocer funding package combines $250,000 from the Minority Business Development Fund for predevelopment work at the site with $250,000 from the fresh-food initiative. Locally based Fresh Grocer currently operates three units her, one in Drexel Hill and another in Upper Darby. Calls to the company's principal, Pat Burns, were not returned by deadline.