ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 22, 1996 TAG: 9608220031
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
For years, Willie Mae Brooks has been able to walk from her Hanover Avenue home in Northwest Roanoke to a small shopping center at 19th Street and Melrose Avenue to buy groceries.
The thought of that convenience disappearing, of paying cab fare to a store miles away or lugging groceries on and off a bus, "makes me feel like crying," she said Wednesday.
"I'm just an old lady," said Brooks, staring at the cans of tuna and sardines stacked on the shelves of aisle two in B.K. Community Supermarket - the shopping center's grocery store.
"You can't carry groceries on a bus," Brooks said. "I guess I'll have to pay somebody to take me to get groceries.
``'Cause you've got to have butter, got to have eggs, got to have bread, got to have milk, got to have ..." Her voice dropped to a low mumble.
B.K. is the most recent of a long line of grocery stores that have tried but failed to thrive in the Northwest Roanoke location.
Kroger closed in 1985. Nick's Grocery opened in 1991 and closed in 1992. Jay's IGA Market opened later that year and closed in 1994. B.K. took over the same day Jay's closed.
B.K. is scheduled to close Sept. 1.
The 19th Street and Melrose Avenue area has a large number of elderly and poor residents. Many of B.K.'s customers get food stamps, said store owner S. Singh.
When food stamps are distributed - one week every month - "that's when we do business. When it's not, it's like this," he said, gesturing toward food aisles that were nearly devoid of shoppers. "We want to stay. We want to help, but it's lack of business."
Jerry Price was looking for eggs. There were none. He wondered aloud what he would do about breakfast.
"I can't understand it," Price said of the store's closing. "There were people in here every day, 24-seven - at least enough to keep the store above water."
Price said the store changed hands so often that he had trouble keeping track of who owned it. But "at least the store was open," he said.
Since the Kroger closing in 1985, Total Action Against Poverty has led an effort to provide supermarket services to residents of the 19th and Melrose area. A fully occupied shopping center has been a goal of TAP and the 19th & Melrose Corp., an economic development arm of TAP.
"We're disappointed that the grocery store is closing," said Ted Edlich, TAP president and treasurer of the 19th & Melrose Corp. "We will work diligently to see that eventually the shopping center is fully occupied and contributes to that community."
The property - donated to TAP by the Kroger Co. - is owned by the corporation. Its board of directors is searching for a new tenant. A new grocery store would be an obvious prospect, but "if it is a grocery store, then it has to be economically viable," Edlich said.
The company that owns B.K., Richmond-based Richfood, Inc., is committed to another five years on a lease agreement, Edlich said.
"We're going to see if we can work out some kind of settlement on that," he said. "We're talking with them in terms of working out an agreement whereby we have enough money to pay back all of the financial institutions that loaned the money to renovate the facility."
Nearly $700,000 in federal community development block grant funds and loans from five area banks and the Southwest Virginia Community Development Fund, paid for property renovations, construction and equipment.
B.K.'s impending closing was evident Wednesday - from the low-stocked shelves to the signs posted in windows advertising 30 percent off everything except beer, wine and cigarettes. Many of the coolers had been shut off for cleaning. The store smelled of food gone bad.
"I hate to see the store leave," said Genova Saunders, after paying for food at the store's only open cashier's line. "It's really going to cramp the elderly who live in this neighborhood. It's six dollars for a cab to the Food Lion on Shenandoah."
Saunders has a car and can drive anywhere in the Roanoke Valley to shop for groceries. But she has patronized B.K. - and its predecessors - out of community obligation. She has lived in the area for 33 years.
"I come to help the business," she said.
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN SPEARMAN/Staff. B.K. Supermarket is the most recentby CNBof a long line of grocery stores that have tried but failed to
thrive in the 19th Street and Melrose Avenue area. Laura Flood
(left) and Evelyn Montaque push their cart to the car. color.