If you were glad to see Martin’s reopen its Jackson Boulevard store in Elkhart Thursday morning after Monday night’s shootings there, you weren’t the only one. Landing the store, which opened in 2020, was a big get for city officials in redeveloping the city’s core.
If you want to know how badly city planners covet downtown grocery stores, look no further west of Elkhart than South Bend. The city is still embroiled in a lawsuit with a developer there over his failure to bring in a downtown Martin’s that he promised the city in 2017.
Grand Rapids-based SpartanNash killed that deal a year later when they bought the local chain, but by that time the Jackson Boulevard project was too far along to pull out of.
Before selling out, Martin’s had agreed with a pitch from the city of Elkhart and developer Great Lakes Capital to replace its old store in the Easy Shopping plaza with a new one fitting the area’s urban feel.
Mike Huber, the city’s director of development services, says the store was a big development win for the city.
"The Martin's store is absolutely an anchor," Huber says. "Having a grocery opportunity in the downtown really does help us support and drive the new density of residents we want to encourage to continue to coming to downtown, and you're seeing it."
Huber says there are about 450 units in the new apartment complexes around the store, 130 more are rising on the north side of Jackson Boulevard west of the store, and there are plans for another couple hundred housing units long-term in the River District.
