Arriel Williams plans to open 7’s Groceries on Nov. 1 at the location formerly occupied by Save-A-Lot on Clear Lake Avenue, and he says a $100,000 business grant from the city of Springfield will be “extremely important” to his future success.
“It’s helping me out a lot,” Williams, 50, a Springfield resident and native, said after the Springfield City Council voted Oct. 6 to approve the grant, along with seven others, all funded through local sales-tax dollars generated by the legal sale of adult-use cannabis.
Williams said he will use the $100,000 grant to buy inventory for sale in the store. The money represents about 40% of startup costs for his business, he said.
Williams, who owned rental properties in the past and said he recently sold a 60-unit residential complex he owned in Chatham, plans to hire 10 to 15 workers by the time he opens 7’s Groceries, a full-service grocery store, at 2520 E. Clear Lake. He said he already has hired the first two employees, who will be meat-cutters.
Williams said he named the supermarket after his daughter, Sevyn, who just turned 7 years old. He said he grew up in the neighborhood, visited the store with relatives as a child when it was known as Bud’s, and dreamed of buying it someday when he worked in Springfield’s hotel industry and for Jewel-Osco and County Market.
He said he purchased the 14,000-square-foot building, which includes 10,000 square feet of retail grocery space and a parking lot, from Quincy-based Niemann Foods, for about $400,000.
Niemann previously operated the store under its Save-A-Lot brand and closed the store in December.
7’s Groceries will be open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week, Williams said, adding that neighborhood residents have told him they are looking forward to having a supermarket close by again.
The eight grants represented the fourth round of disbursements in the city’s Cannabis Business Grant program since the program began in 2022. The city’s share of sales taxes on cannabis sales began to be collected in January 2020.
The other seven $100,000 grants were awarded to: SafeStep Transportation, 1100 South Grand Ave. E.; Manny D’s, 1801 E. Cook St.; Rose Cole LLC, doing business as Elderberry & Plumb Bookstore, 926 S. Seventh St.; Nehemiah Expansion, 2208 E. Kansas St.; AJz Corner 1st LLC, 1100 S. 11th St.; Daugherty Undercoat Shop, 1828 S. Wirt Ave.; and All In One Management and Services Inc., 801 South Grand Ave. E.
Final grant amounts and disbursements depend on agreements being worked out between the recipients and the city, according to Amy Rasing, director of the city’s Office of Planning and Economic Development.
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Springfield is one of the few municipalities in the state that uses its cannabis tax revenue to promote minority-owned businesses. The city receives about $1.5 million in local sales taxes from Springfield cannabis dispensaries each year, according to Ward 2 Ald. Shawn Gregory.
The City Council decided to devote half of the city’s 3% sales-tax revenue from cannabis sales to help pay off the city’s fire and police pension-related debts. The council decided that the other half would be used for economic development in areas of the city adversely affected by the failed “war on drugs.”
Homeowners requesting home-improvement grants, as well as minority-owned businesses interested in the grants, must be in the Cannabis Occupation Area designated by the City Council.
That area originally was bounded by Carpenter Street on the north, Ash Street on the south, Dirksen Parkway on the east and the 10th Street rail corridor on the west. Business owners must live in Springfield.
The council in February voted to double the size of the Cannabis Occupation Area. Previously confined to the city’s east side, the area now extends west to Fourth Street, and part of the northern border extends to North Grand Avenue rather than stopping at Carpenter Street. Also new to the area are parts of the Enos Park and Pillsbury Mills neighborhoods.
Gregory, who spearheaded creation of the cannabis grants program, said about 45 minority-owned businesses have benefited from the program so far, and $2.3 million has been allocated to businesses and homeowners.
“It is doing what we want it to do,” he said of the program. “It is working.”