People look to change up shopping routines pending 1st Ave Hy-Vee closure

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – With the Hy-Vee store set to close next month, people in the Mound View and Wellington Heights neighborhoods will need to find other ways to get food and prescriptions.

The next closest grocery stores are roughly two miles away. That includes a Fareway on First Avenue and another Hy-Vee on Oakland Road.

Many of the people shopping at the 1st avenue Hy-Vee walk to the store or take public transit buses. Some say they will have to change the way they shop in order to get the groceries they need.

”Well I would have to catch the bus to get to Oakland,” said Ludie Johnson. ”Catch the bus there to get the meat that we want and then have to take another bus to get the dog food that my dog likes.”

Johnson takes the bus every day. From her apartment 2 and a half blocks away, it takes her roughly 5 minutes to get to the Hy-Vee on first avenue.

“I go to the store every day when I get off work. I don’t care if I’ve got $5 in my pocket, I go and spend that $5,” Johnson said.

With the store closing in June, Johnson is going to change up the way she gets her food every day.

”Twice a week and probably to two different stores. There’s a lot of people that aren’t going to be able to do that,” Johnson said.

For Johnson, that means she’d have to take two different buses to get everything she needs. It’s a shopping trip that she thinks will be much longer than her typical 5 minutes.

”It’s going to take a couple of hours. You have to figure– you have to wait for the bus every 15 to 20 minutes. And you’ve got to shop, make sure you’ve got everything you need so you don’t have to go to no other store,“ Johnson said.

TV9′s Rebekah Vaughan decided to see how long a bus ride from a stop two blocks away from the 1st ave Hy-Vee to the Hy-Vee on Oakland Road would take. Getting to the store took roughly 5 minutes.

It took roughly half an hour to get back to the area she was picked up.

But that was only one bus, and it didn’t include time to shop for food or wait for buses to arrive. It’s something Johnson said isn’t an option for everyone.

”I’m 70 years old, but you’ve got people older than me. How are the elders going to get there,” Johnson said.

Others agree the closing of the store will make getting the basics complicated.

”When there’s not a bus and there’s nobody around to help, it makes it twice as difficult for people like me,” said William Rosberg, another frequent shopper at the 1st avenue Hy-Vee.

”I think it’s bad they’re taking it away from us because we need it down here,” Johnson said.

The Cedar Rapids city council also discussed actions they are taking regarding the closure of the store at a city council meeting Tuesday.

”I have gone from the stages of grief, I don’t know exactly what they are, but from the shock that we felt to the absolute anger that we felt, to now it’s just action… now it’s really just a solution,” said Cedar Rapids Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell.

Mayor O’Donnell says the city is focused on finding a solution after Hy-Vee announced it’s closing a grocery store in a higher needs area of the city – the only grocery store in that area.

The city of Cedar Rapids outlined the conversations it’s had with Hy-Vee over this store, and the investments it’s made in the First Avenue East area. The city says it wants to hear from the neighborhoods to ensure whatever happens next includes the people who live there.

Mayor O’Donnell and other city leaders were vocal about feeling blindsided by Hy-Vee.

TV9 had asked Hy-Vee to respond to the city’s understanding that it expected the store to stay – but Hy-Vee has not responded.

Tuesday, City Manager Jeff Pomeranz reiterated the city wanted to keep the 1st avenue Hy-Vee open, but also recognized that is going to be an extremely difficult task.

He said the city is looking at different areas that Hy-Vee could be able to support the community. That may include transportation assistance to get to other stores and back in a cost-effective manner. Pomeranz said it may also include support in having groceries delivered.

”We’re looking at different opportunities to try to help the residents. We think that’s owed to the residents that have supported this store, but this will all kind of mature,” Pomeranz said.

Multiple council members chimed in during the meeting, voicing concerns around the situation.

”If you go to the first avenue Hy-Vee, you will see people walking,” said council woman Ann Poe. “The most important thing about that is they make multiple trips. If you don’t have transportation, you’re not going to be carrying lots of bags of groceries, so you’re going to have to be able to walk to be able to get multiple trips of your food because you can’t carry all of that while you’re walking. So, while we may be able to provide transportation, it’s going to be important to remember that a lot of these people require multiple trips during the week to get what they need.”

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