Whole Foods Englewood, Changing Chicago's Food Desert (2017)

Chicago south side residents will have a new opportunity to shop for the finest natural and organic foods available, right within their community. Whole Foods Markets, touted on their website as America's healthiest grocery store, made an announcement to build a 18,000 square foot store in Englewood, one of Chicago's most impoverished neighborhoods. The upscale grocery store chain, based in Austin Texas, announced plans Wednesday to open a store in 2016. A community that's marred with vacant properties and plagued with gang related crimes, Whole Foods will be built on the corner of 63rd and Halsted, located near the newly designed City Colleges of Chicago Kennedy-King College, a campus that has an enrollment of over 6000 students. Chicago's Mayor Rahm Emanuel says that the store will anchor a 13-acre complex for which the city has promised TIF funding, generated through the Chicago Neighborhoods Now initiative.