Food deserts are areas that lack access to affordable fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk, and other foods that make up the full range of a healthy diet. Limited access to affordable, healthier foods is one factor driving negative health outcomes in many communities.
The other defining characteristic of food deserts is socioeconomic: that is, they are most commonly found in low-income areas. That’s where the NMTC can help. Since 2003, the NMTC has financed over 300 grocery stores, farmers’ markets, food delivery services, food banks, and other projects expanding access to food in underserved areas.
VIDEO: Fresh Food Stories
Vallarta Food Enterprises
Project City:
Pasadena,
Project State:
Ca
Project Year:
(2017)
Vallarta Supermarket "Vallarta", a Latino owned & controlled company acquired the lease of a 49,870 sf former Vons Grocery in a severely distressed low-income community in Pasadena, CA. Vons closed ...
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Gateway Marketplace
Project City:
Detroit,
Project State:
MI
Project Year:
(2012)
An open air retail mall located on Eight Mile Road in Detroit, MI, this project will construct a major retail center remediating a 36-acre Brownfield site at the Southeast corner ...
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Red Lake Grocery
Project City:
Red Lake,
Project State:
MN
Project Year:
(2018)
Red Lake Inc., an economic development enterprise of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, and its subsidiary, Red Lake Retail, are building a new grocery store to better serve ...
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Rego Park Aldi
Project City:
Rego Park,
Project State:
NY
Project Year:
(2018)
One of five small loans in the amount of $2 million or less to: (i) finance the construction and renovation of five ALDI food stores in various regions of New ...
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Treasures Market
Project City:
Lancaster,
Project State:
PA
Project Year:
(2020)
Treasures Markets gets $1.9M boost from federal tax credits for discount grocery/thrift store in Lancaster city. Gov. Tom Wolf announced Tuesday that Treasures Markets will get the help to buy ...
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Rockford City Market
Project City:
Rockford,
Project State:
IL
Project Year:
(2018)
Rockford City Market Master Tenant: The revitalization of downtown Rockford took another step forward with Wednesday's groundbreaking ceremonies for the indoor City Market at a vacant building in the 100 ...
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Church Hill North Retail Center
Project City:
Richmond,
Project State:
VA
Project Year:
(2018)
Construction loan for mixed-use development with grocery store, pharmacy, credit union, community space. The Church Hill North area is designated as a food desert. Affordable, healthy, nutritional food choices are ...
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Prince Avanue Market
Project City:
Athens,
Project State:
GA
Project Year:
(2019)
Prince Avenue Market is the new construction of a four-story, mixed-use building with 20,500 square feet of retail and commercial space and 34 homes in Athens, Georgia. The retail space ...
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Shops at Park Village
Project City:
Washington,
Project State:
DC
Project Year:
(2006)
The Shops at Park Village project is a 111,293 sq. ft. commercial development in the Congress Heights neighborhood in southeast Washington, DC ...
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Newark Farmer’s Market
Project City:
Newark,
Project State:
NJ
Project Year:
(2013)
180,000 sqft food processing and distribution center with this phase consisting of 90,000 sqft: Wuhl Shafman Lieberman, Corp. is in the process of creating a modern cold-storage warehouse with the ...
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Fare and Square
Project City:
Chester,
Project State:
PA
Project Year:
(2012)
Lack of access to healthy food is a critical issue in Chester, Pennsylvania, where more than 15,000 residents do not have adequate access to a full-service supermarket. Philabundance, the Delaware ...
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Pullman Park
Project City:
CHICAGO,
Project State:
IL
Project Year:
(2011)
Nearly 200 years since its founding by George Pullman of the Pullman Palace Rail Car Company and despite noble efforts to revitalize the area, the Pullman neighborhood on the South ...
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Armature Works
Project City:
Tampa,
Project State:
FL
Project Year:
(2017)
The Armature Works building was originally built in 1910 as a streetcar maintenance facility. With NMTC financing, the facility was renovated, and now includes local market and food vendors downstairs, ...
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Essex Crossing
Project City:
New York,
Project State:
NY
Project Year:
(2015)
Essex Crossing includes 1,000 residential for-sale and rental units, a 15,000 sf public park, a 10,000 sf rooftop urban farm and 1.9 million square feet of residential, commercial, and community ...
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Restaurant Depot
Project City:
North Charleston,
Project State:
SC
Project Year:
(2018)
Development of a new 62,333 square-foot Restaurant Depot. Restaurant Depot is a business-to-business grocery and food service distributor. The majority of its customers are independent restaurant owners, small retailers, caterers, ...
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Janesville Festival Foods
Project City:
Janesville,
Project State:
WI
Project Year:
(2015)
Festival Foods is a Wisconsin-based, family owned grocery chain that saw potential for a new store located in a USDA food desert at the site of a vacated K-Mart in ...
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Crosstown Concourse
Project City:
Memphis,
Project State:
TN
Project Year:
(2014)
Crosstown Concourse is a highly impactful vertical urban village dedicated to the cultivation of health and well-being. The mixed‐use redevelopment will preserve the one million square foot historic Sears Roebuck ...
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Severn Peanut Manufacturing
Project City:
Severn,
Project State:
NC
Project Year:
(2013)
Severn Peanut Company, Inc. is a producer of peanut based consumer products. The company's products include peanut butter and roasted in-shell peanuts, which are sold under a variety of brand ...
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Gates Aldi
Project City:
Gates,
Project State:
NY
Project Year:
(2018)
One of five small loans in the amount of $2 million or less to: (i) finance the construction and renovation of five ALDI food stores in various regions of New ...
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Bozeman Community Food Co-op
Project City:
Bozeman,
Project State:
MT
Project Year:
(2018)
A LOCALLY OWNED GROCERY STORE IN MONTANA IS EXPANDING IN A REDEVELOPING AREA PROVIDING A CATALYST FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT AND NUMEROUS ACCESSIBLE JOBS ...
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Rural Grocery Stores
Project City:
McCall,
Project State:
ID
Project Year:
(2018)
This project is the rehabilitation of two rural grocery stores located in food deserts in small towns in Idaho and Montana ...
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Marshall County Life Center
Project City:
Plymouth,
Project State:
IN
Project Year:
(2018)
Construction loan for community learning and health center. The first structure, 12,000 sq. ft., will feature an affordable childcare and learning center, workforce development programs and office space for United ...
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Progress Plaza
Project City:
Philadelphia,
Project State:
PA
Project Year:
(2005)
In 1968 civil rights leader Rev. Leon Sullivan built Progress Plaza, the nation's first African-American-owned shopping center. Located in North Philadelphia, much of the center had fallen into disrepair since ...
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Coral Town Plaza
Project City:
Naranja,
Project State:
FL
Project Year:
(2017)
Coral Town Plaza is a grocery-anchored, 60,000 square-foot neighborhood center. This center physically and strategically coincides with the proposed future bus stop and community urban center along the Metro Busway ...
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Town and Country Foods
Project City:
Bozeman,
Project State:
MT
Project Year:
(2009)
Town & Country Foods, Inc. (T&C), owned by the Perlinski family, has been in the business of providing low-cost groceries in Bozeman, Montana for four decades. T&C began its warehouse ...
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Heritage Square
Project City:
Columbus,
Project State:
OH
Project Year:
(2006)
Economically distressed urban communities face many challenges, including access to affordable healthcare, childcare, and housing. One often overlooked, but equally important challenge is access to fresh, yet affordable groceries. Residents ...
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Massena ALDI
Project City:
Massena,
Project State:
NY
Project Year:
(2018)
One of five small loans in the amount of $2 million or less to: (i) finance the construction and renovation of five ALDI food stores in various regions of New ...
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The ReFresh Project
Project City:
New Orleans,
Project State:
LA
Project Year:
(2013)
As part of an overall neighborhood vision for the Broad Street Commercial Corridor in New Orleans, the ReFresh Project is helping to drive revitalization. A former abandoned building will soon ...
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Bottino’s Shoprite
Project City:
Vineland,
Project State:
NJ
Project Year:
(2012)
Bottino's ShopRite in Vineland, the family-run grocery chain that included a community health clinic. The 74,000-square-foot supermarket added 100 new jobs, with more than half filled by Vineland residents. The ...
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Littleton Consumer Cooperative Society, Inc.
Project City:
Littleton,
Project State:
NH
Project Year:
(2016)
The 6,000-square-foot addition will allow the co-op on Keene's Cypress Street to expand popular departments, such as meats, seafood, the deli and prepared foods. The current store is about 8,000 ...
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Triangle Plaza Hub
Project City:
Bronx,
Project State:
NY
Project Year:
(2013)
Triangle Plaza Hub (Triangle Plaza) is an 88,000 square-foot, LEED Silver mixed-use commercial and community development that will replace an underutilized municipal parking lot in the Mott Haven neighborhood of ...
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Capitol Distributing III, LLP
Project City:
Caldwell,
Project State:
ID
Project Year:
(2018)
The project is new construction of a building that will house for distribution goods sold in convenience and small grocery stores. The new facility will allow the QALICB to add ...
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Hitchcock’s Market
Project City:
Old Town,
Project State:
FL
Project Year:
(2013)
In rural Dixie County, Florida, there was only one grocery store, and its 30-year old building had become run down. With NMTC financing, Hitchcock's Market, a small regional chain, built ...
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City Point
Project City:
Brooklyn,
Project State:
NY
Project Year:
(2012)
The City Point project (City Point) is a three-phase development of a LEED Silver, 1.8 million gross-square-foot retail and residential complex located in downtown Brooklyn, New York. NMTC allocation was ...
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Kroger Fremont
Project City:
Fremont,
Project State:
OH
Project Year:
(2018)
Construct an 89,650 square foot, full-service Kroger grocery store and pharmacy, expected to serve 42,631 customers annually. Project is located in a Non-Metro county; poverty rate is 27.7% median family ...
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Harrison Fresh Market
Project City:
New Orleans,
Project State:
LA
Project Year:
(2009)
Robert Fresh Market has successfully rehabilitated a vacant 21,000 square foot building into a new full-service grocery store. The building formerly housed a successful community grocery store which was severely ...
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Plaza Mariachi
Project City:
Nashville,
Project State:
TN
Project Year:
(2016)
The centerpiece of Plaza Mariachi on Nolensville Road is now open with many of the restaurants and small businesses now operating inside the main building. Housed in a former Kroger ...
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United Supermarkets – Albertsons
Project City:
Carlsbad,
Project State:
NM
Project Year:
(2018)
NMTC financing was used to construct an Albertsons grocery store. This location will include space for a health clinic and pharmacy in a medically underserved area ...
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Rouse’s Grocery Store
Project City:
Marrero,
Project State:
LA
Project Year:
(2018)
The project will provide a roughly 40,000ft full service grocery store which will provide access to healthy fresh food in a highly distressed census tract which has also been designated ...
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Foley Grocer
Project City:
Foley,
Project State:
AL
Project Year:
(2018)
The Project is the 5th phase in a 5-phase commercial development located at the Project site in Foley, AL. Although the Project is technically the last phase of the development, ...
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Hahne & Co. Department Store Building
Project City:
Newark,
Project State:
NJ
Project Year:
(2015)
The historic Hahne & Company Department Store building ('Hahne's') on Broad Street in downtown Newark, New Jersey, once stood as an emblem of the city's prominence. Vacant for nearly thirty ...
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Healthy Hartford Hub
Project City:
Hartford,
Project State:
CT
Project Year:
(2018)
A full-service grocery store catering to Hartford's North End and downtown is in the works. The city and the Hartford Community Loan Fund are planning a $23 million "Healthy Hartford ...
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Green Zebra
Project City:
Portland,
Project State:
OR
Project Year:
(2016)
Green Zebra is a neighborhood grocery offering convenient access to fresh, healthy foods in a food desert ...
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More Stories
Seward’s Co-Op, Minneapolis, MN
Seward Community Cooperative Friendship Store, a fresh foods project financed in part by the New Markets Tax Credit. Seward Community Cooperative Friendship Store, a fresh foods project financed in part by the New Markets Tax Credit Learn more.
VIDEO: Food Bank Stories
Food Bank of Northeast Georgia
Through the NMTC funding, the Food Bank expanded its reach into the Georgia mountain region in 2016 by opening a distribution warehouse and food processing center in Rabun County. The $6.4 million food hub includes a production facility, flash freezing capabilities, a teaching kitchen and a food distribution center. A commercial kitchen was completed in 2017. Learn more from Rural Development Partners