Food City, a Virginia-based chain perhaps most familiar for its title sponsorships of NASCAR races at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee, said it will invest $90 million in opening the six stores and create about 1,350 jobs. The stores are each expected to include a full-service Starbucks coffee shop.
The city is offering up to $9 million in tax refunds as incentives to the grocery chain, according to a development agreement the city council will consider at Thursday’s meeting.
The stores will be built in two phases with the first phase to be completed within three years. The first phase stores will be built on North Memorial Parkway near Bob Wade Lane, on U.S. Highway 72 East near Shields Road and on U.S. Highway 431 in Hampton Cove near Taylor Road.
The locations of the second phase stores are in northwest Huntsville on Alabama Highway 53 north of Research Park Boulevard, on Jordan Lane/Patton Road near Interstate 565 and in west Huntsville near the Mazda Toyota Manufacturing plant.
Food City’s only Alabama location, in Albertville, opened in 2021. A second Alabama location is under construction in Gadsden. Food City parent company K-VA-T Food Stores has about 150 locations across Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia as well as the Alabama locations.
Each store will have a brick front and include full-service meat and seafood departments as well as a full-service deli. A coffee shop with a “nationally-branded coffee retailer” will also be in each location. Starbucks has typically been the coffee shop at other locations.
The tax refunds from the city will go into effect once the first phase stores are completed. The funds will come from sales taxes from those stores, the agreement said. Each of the two phases of construction are eligible for up to $4.5 million in tax refunds.