Photo courtesy of H-E-B/Central Market.
Updated 4/25: with comments from the Lake Cliff Neighborhood Association President Jennifer Thornton
Updated 4/26: This article has been updated to clarify that there are not currently plans to move forward with an Oak Cliff location of Central Market; rather, the company has met with city officials to brainstorm what the store could look like in our neighborhood following the eventual completion of the McKinney Avenue store. Additionally, developers would be eligible for Southern Gateway Park-area TIFF subsidies and other city funding.
A 50,000 square foot Central Market grocery store planned for a site near the Lake Cliff neighborhood will be the next Dallas-based project on the developer’s list, city council member Chad West said Tuesday.
The store has long been anticipated by neighbors after the grocer’s San Antonio-based parent company, H-E-B, purchased land at 111 E. Davis St. back in 2017.
At the time, a Central Market spokeswoman told the Dallas Morning News that the land was purchased “in anticipation of our future expansion needs.”
West said he recently requested a meeting with H-E-B to “fully understand what their plans are” for the Oak Cliff expansion.
In the meeting, West was told the Lake Cliff store is next in line behind the Central Market being built on McKinney Avenue. That project has been repeatedly stalled due to the pandemic and recent rising costs of construction, and is now on hold due to financing that makes the project “not doable.”
Still, West said that after meeting with H-E-B developers he is optimistic about the grocery store eventually joining our neighborhood, even if there is not a plan of when that could be.
“We’ve worked through other difficult grocery store scenarios recently with Sprouts, so I’m not afraid to power through this,” West said.
Jennifer Thornton, President of the Lake Cliff neighborhood association, said the grocery store will be a “wonderful addition” to her neighborhood which currently lacks walkable grocery options.
“We are thrilled that H-E-B saw a future in our neighborhood,” Thornton said.
Thornton said that she hopes neighbors will be invited to come to the table as plans for the Central Market develop. While Central Market is generally considered to be a more high end grocery store, she said that Lake Cliff residents represent a wide range of economic diversity and she hopes all neighbors will be able to find affordable grocery options at the Central Market.
The land is zoned as a WMU-5 (walkable mixed-use, five stories.) Discussions about the grocery store building have imagined a one story parking garage, a second story Central Market, and three stories of apartment housing above the grocery store.
Already this year, Oak Cliff has seen a rise in major retail outlets that have expressed interest in joining our neighborhood.
In early March, Target announced a new 111,000 square foot location that will be built in Wynnewood Village. Just a week after that announcement, the city council unanimously approved rezoning plans that will allow a Sprouts to be built at the corner of Fort Worth Avenue and South Hampton Road.
