Homeland To Break Ground On New Store In NE OKC

Thursday at noon, Homeland will break ground on a new grocery store near Northeast 36th Street and North Lincoln Boulevard.

Currently, there are limited options for fresh food in this area, and city leaders call it a food desert.

That will change when this new Homeland opens by the fall of 2021.

The new store will be nearly 30,000 square feet. In addition to a supermarket, there will also be a wellness center inside where people can go workout.

It will be Homeland's first store, built from the ground up in decades.

Homeland, the OKC-City Council, especially councilwoman Nikki Nice, and Black Live Matter OKC have been pushing for this development since the Smart Saver off Northeast 23rd Street and North Martin Luther King Avenue closed last year.

"There was a lot of people talking about a supermarket, and lot of people who announced things that never came to fruition. Well I am standing here today very confident that a year from now we will be talking about the recently opened Homeland store," said Homeland CEO Marc Jones.

A grocery store in this area was on the list of demands from Black Lives Matter OKC to the city back in June.

BLM leaders say this is a step in the right direction.

"We should have access to basic necessities, access to nutritious foods and good produce. And make sure that it is accessible to everyone in a certain scope of area," said T. Sheri Dickerson from Black Lives Matter OKC.