With First Avenue NE Hy-Vee closed, here’s how to get groceries

CEDAR RAPIDS — Having lived in Wellington Heights since the 1990s, Eric May remembers hanging out along the sidewalk outside the First Avenue NE Hy-Vee, even before the West Des Moines-based grocer opened there in 2002.

To get groceries, May, 54, typically has walked to the Hy-Vee several blocks from the house he’s lived in for decades. Now that the store closed Sunday, he is among customers planning to use the shuttle that Hy-Vee is funding through Sept. 1 to the Oakland Road NE Hy-Vee to buy groceries.

When the shuttle service ends in September, unless Hy-Vee decides otherwise, May said he’ll eventually take a bus to Walmart.

“Otherwise there’s no other place around,” May said, besides the Mount Vernon Road SE Hy-Vee or Fareway on First Avenue SE near Lindale Mall. For now, he said, the neighborhood will be left without nearby access to fresh food.

“I just hope that they’ll at least bring a food place back here,” May said.

With the 1556 First Ave. NE Hy-Vee now shuttered, Hy-Vee and local agencies are putting in place temporary measures to serve customers affected by the store’s closure after more than two decades at the location. It opened in 2002 after the city of Cedar Rapids dedicated a $915,000 incentive package to replace a small, rundown Hy-Vee store nearby.

The grocer announced in May that it would close the First Avenue NE store and others in Iowa that “have not consistently met our financial expectations and sales goals over the past several years.”

Hy-Vee’s departure at the First Avenue NE location leaves no grocery store in the area within a mile and a half, creating a food desert.

The store was located in the Cedar Rapids neighborhood with the highest poverty levels, census data show, with 38.1 percent of downtown residents falling below the federal poverty level — the minimum gross income a household needs for basic necessities. For individuals, that is $15,060.

The store also served some of Cedar Rapids’ most racially diverse neighborhoods, with more residents who are Black, Indigenous and other people of color than other areas beyond the city core.

Download: 08.2 CR Downtown Food Desert.pdf

With temporary solutions in place, city leaders say they are focused on finding another tenant for the building, ideally another grocer.

The property is owned by Agree Limited Partnership. While Hy-Vee last fall extended its lease five years, the grocer is not placing any restrictions that would bar another grocer from locating there.

The city of Cedar Rapids completed a grocery market study last September, which found there is high opportunity in the core of the city around the New Bohemia District, the MedQuarter and downtown for a grocery store that appeals to lower- and moderate-income residents who are price conscious when they shop.

Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell said the city has had conversations with regional and national grocers about potentially locating at this building or elsewhere in the area, as well as nonprofits about forming a consortium to fill the gap.

“We have not stopped looking intensely for a replacement,” O’Donnell said. “It remains a top priority. … That neighborhood needs a replacement for resources whether it’s in that building or another one nearby.”

Shuttle, free grocery delivery temporarily offered

Hy-Vee is funding a free shuttle, offered through Horizons’ Neighborhood Transportation Service, from the closed First Avenue store to the Hy-Vee store where pharmacy prescriptions will be transferred, the Oakland Road NE Hy-Vee. A shuttle also will be offered at the Davenport and Waterloo stores being closed.

Free shuttles will run three days a week starting today through Sept. 1. Hy-Vee “will reevaluate their use by the community” after that. Pick up and drop off will occur in the parking lot of the closed store.

The shuttle will run round trips during these hours:

Hy-Vee also will provide free Aisles Online grocery delivery to residents within a 1-mile radius of the close store for up to one year when they sign up for the service. Customers can register for the service now through Sept. 1 by calling Hy-Vee Customer Care at (800) 772-4098. Customers need a computer, smartphone, tablet or iPad, as well as a credit card, to sign up for this service. Hy-Vee will require a minimum order of $24.95.

Jim Vasquez, 79, and Peggy Clymer, 73, live near the First Avenue Hy-Vee and saw the same regular customers walking to it nearly every day. While they have a car, the siblings said they see many customers walking with small quantities of food.

“It’s that little stuff like a load of bread or salt or sugar,” Vasquez said, that he’ll miss having easy access to with the store closed.

Clymer said the limited shuttle hours are “not much time” for those who will rely on it.

James Mace, 42, who lives on First Avenue NE and recently moved from Florida, said he plans to drive or take the bus to Walmart and Sam’s Club. He wasn’t concerned about accessing these stores, but said “I feel bad for people that live around here that go to Hy-Vee almost every day” and for those with disabilities who will have a harder time getting around town.

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With the shuttle operating three days a week, Mace wondered: “What good is that for these people around here who don’t have cars?”

HACAP boosting food supply to pantries

HACAP Food Reservoir Director Kim Guardado said Hy-Vee has long partnered with the agency and has a five-day-a-week food rescue truck visiting their stores to distribute food that won’t sell but is good to eat. Recognizing the food desert Hy-Vee’s departure creates, she said “we’re prepared to step in and do what we can in that space.”

In HACAP’s seven-county service area including Linn and Johnson counties, she said most food deserts are covered by mobile food pantries. HACAP will do more mobile food pantries to directly serve the Wellington Heights and Mound View neighborhoods this summer, Guardado said.

Additionally, HACAP this summer will supply extra food to food pantries in this area to ensure they can meet increased demand resulting from the store closure.

The three main pantries HACAP supports are Loaves and Fishes, 1030 Fifth Ave. SE; one inside the Wellington Heights Pantry at First Congregational United Church of Christ, 361 17th St. SE; and United We March Forward’s pantry at 214 13th St. SE.

Download: FoodResourceGuide.pdf

For a full list of pantries as well as HACAP’s mobile pantry schedule, visit hacap.org or call (319) 393-7811, option 2.

She said HACAP will continue to assess the situation and ensure efforts are serving those living in Wellington Heights and Mound View. “We are committed to doing what we need to fill the gap, but certainly we also can’t expect food pantries to fill the entire gap of a grocery store,” Guardado said.

How are temporary measures being communicated?

Guardado said HACAP was helping distribute some notices in the neighborhood telling customers of the resources available with the store closure. Before the store shuttered, there also were signs posted there informing customers of the temporary resources.

O’Donnell said city Community Development Director Jennifer Pratt has assembled staff and volunteers to hand-deliver a list of resources to the affected neighborhoods “to ensure that we get to the people who will need it the most.”

Pharmacy access

Hy-Vee will continue to provide free pharmacy delivery to Cedar Rapids, Waterloo and Davenport residents, a service it already has offered for to all residents of these cities.

Plus, UnityPoint Health-St. Luke’s Pharmacy, located in the lower level of St. Luke’s Hospital at 1026 A Ave. NE, offers free delivery within a 20-mile radius of St. Luke’s and free mail delivery.

This pharmacy is located within walking distance of Wellington Heights and Mound View and is on a public bus route. Patients must be home at the time of delivery. St. Luke’s Pharmacy is open 7:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 7:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday. The pharmacy can be reached at (319) 369-7528.

In the long run, O’Donnell said “ideally we’d have the pharmacy component as well” to replace the loss, but “that may be asking too much.”

Comments: (319) 398-8494; marissa.payne@thegazette.com