Charlotte food cooperative key to West Boulevard growth

THREE SISTERS MARKET

A rendering of the interior of Three Sisters Market, a 10,000-square foot food cooperative scheduled to break ground in October. Upon completion in 2027, Three Sisters will provide the West Boulevard corridor access to a full-scale source for healthy food.

The long, winding path to Three Sisters Market is nearly complete.

The cooperative will bring a full-scale food resource to communities in the West Boulevard corridor, which has lacked access to fresh food for decades. A decade after launching a program to recruit members, the 10,000-square-foot market’s groundbreaking is scheduled for October and will open in late 2027. Among the financial supporters is Wells Fargo, which in April donated $1.5 million to the West Boulevard Neighborhood Coalition to support the market’s development.

“With this cooperative, there’s a lot of pieces – not just a grocery store, not just building a building,” said Janiqua Jackson, Three Sisters’ general manager. “We’re actually building community here, and in those ways, we’re soliciting member owners and those member owners are actually owners of this business, and so with that, it takes a lot of work.”

The West Boulevard corridor, which includes 33,000 residents, has long campaigned for a supermarket, but corporate-owned retailers tend to locate stores in more affluent neighborhoods. In west Charlotte, where communities near the urban core tend to be Black, food deserts are more likely to result. 

“It’s been a long time coming, and it’s not the first effort,” said Rickey Hall, a longtime West Boulevard advocate. “We did this back in the ‘80s when we took over a running a shopping center called Westover Hill Shopping Center that the U.S. Marshals had confiscated and set forth a dream of doing the same thing that we’re doing now, and it took 11 years from the time that iteration was birthed until it actually opened, but at the same time, we didn’t get a grocery store. Whatever the reason and the dynamics and the market forces that didn’t see us as a viable opportunity, we face similar challenges, but here we are.”

Three Sisters is the culmination of a campaign to bring nutritious options to a longtime food desert. According to Feeding America, food insecurity occurs when a household can’t access food due to a lack of essential resources. Among the factors are household income, expenses, access to affordable health care, social and physical environment.

People disproportionately impacted by food insecurity include children, people of color, the formerly incarcerated, and single-parent households.

Geography is also a factor. West Boulevard is near the urban core but has historically been underinvested by city government and the business community. As a result, there’s less access to necessities – something supporters want to change, starting with food.

“When you drop down into the West Boulevard Corridor, we’re in the same part as East Boulevard, but when you look at South End, in that area, you’ve got access to banks, you’ve got access to grocery stores, you’ve got access to anything that you would ever want to see,” Hall said. “But when you come into the West Boulevard corridor, we’ve been a food desert for eons and the traditional markets, for whatever reason, passed us by and at the same time, what you would find is a lot of dollar stores and convenience stores and things of that nature. 

“What we’re actually seeking to solve is that need for fresh, healthy fruit, vegetables, and produce in a full service grocery store arrangement to tackle what has been an area that has a lot of social determinants of health, whether it be high blood pressure, heart trouble, diabetes, all of the social maladies, and we certainly want to provide that in proximity to where people live.” 

Food insecurity is a growing problem in Mecklenburg County. According to research by the UNC Charlotte Department of Epidemiology and Community Health, 15% of households lack access to nutritious food sources. Mecklenburg’s poverty rate in 2023 was 9.9% compared to 13.4% of North Carolina residents living below the poverty line and 12.8% nationally. 

About 10% of Mecklenburg residents struggle with housing, utilities, and energy costs and a lack of transportation often means people live in food deserts. Grocery stores are not always close by or affordable, leaving fast food and convenience stores as the primary food sources.

With its community-based business model, Three Sisters leans on the financial support of more than 625 neighborhood investor-owners who control the cooperative’s rules. But like corporate stores, there’s no restriction on who can shop. 

Rendering of the exterior of Three Sisters market, which is expected to break ground in October and open in late 2027.

“We want everybody to shop at the store, but to be a member-owner … it’s as easy as paying a one-time fee of $100,” Jackson said. “There’s a lot of democratic values that we are supporting along with the member ownership, being able to make decisions on what’s happening, but also turning over what’s going to happen inside the store. There are board seats and committee seats available, so we really want for this to be a community-owned store.”

Hall sees Three Sisters as West Boulevard neighbors making an investment in themselves. Where corporations see a bottom line, member-owners are betting on self-help and empowerment that can attract additional capitalization.

“In actuality, it is the community taking ownership of a problem that it has been seeking to solve,” he said. “We can’t ask others to contribute if we’re not willing to contribute ourselves, and that member ownership, that community governance and control, and that professionally run market is the way and the path forward to sustainable, long-term investment in the West Boulevard corridor.”

Said Jackson: “What’s happening right now is it’s creating power. A lot of what you hear us doing, and the underlying thought behind it is to empower our community. Economic mobility is a thing. I think all the reasons surrounding why a grocery store isn’t in our community as of now surrounds economics. …

“The first step is to be able to take care of ourselves. … We just know that now is our time.”

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