BALTIMORE — It was not business as usual Wednesday at the Giant supermarket in the Edmonson Square shopping center.
Although there were no signs out saying that the store is closing, a few customers like Phillip Bass saw on social media that morning that their neighborhood market is going away.
The company announced Wednesday that the store is closing June 13.
Bass has lived in Edmonson Village since 1958. He says the community has worked hard to bring in recent growth in the area, like new homes currently under construction across the street from the market, and the redevelopment of the Edmonson Village shopping center a block away. A new bank and the MTA Red Line are also in the works.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he says. “Here we are, on the way up. Everything is moving forward… and they decide to move [the supermarket] out to the county.”
He’s disappointed to hear this store is closing.
“They don’t care about the people in the community,” Bass says.
Bass says the shelves hadn’t been restocked. He asked employees about it two weeks ago and they didn’t know what was going on.
In a statement to WMAR, Giant says they are consolidating stores that are not meeting sales goals.
Bass disagrees.
“This is a classic example of disinvestment in the African American community,” he says. “We’re not considered economically viable to them.”
The company’s statement goes on to say: “We believe we can meet the current needs of our customers with the locations that we have in the community.”
They’re referring customers to their newly remodeled store on Wilkens Avenue in the Wilkens Beltway Plaza. That store is over the county line, near the UMBC campus. Bass says it’s a five-mile walk from the Edmonson Avenue store, and it will take three buses to get over there.
“What about the seniors who live in the community that have to come up here? Now they have to go all the way to Wilkens Avenue to get their prescriptions filled? What about the people who live further down Edmonson Avenue on the other side of the bridge? This is the only market on this side of town.”
Bass says people walk from as far as Pulaski Street, about two miles away, to get to this market. With the store’s closure, he says the area will become a food desert.
“They don’t care about the people here,” he says. “We spend our money here. We put our tax dollars here. They got tax credits to build this store.”
The Giant has been at this location since 1998.
