Fights, shoplifting, drug use, public sex: The Sun Fresh grocery store at 31st Street and Prospect Avenue has been battling these issues to the brink of crisis over the past few years.
Now, it seems Sun Fresh is running out of food. On Thursday morning, the shelves across wide swaths of the store — the snacks aisle, the soup aisle, entire walls of refrigerated meats — were almost completely bare.
One of the two employees The Star was able to find in the building said she had been reporting to work every day unsure if the place would even be in business when she arrived.
“We are not placing big orders,” Emmet Pierson, president of Community Builders KC, the nonprofit that owns the store, confirmed to The Star late Thursday. “The store is placing orders to fulfill our WIC requirements.” (WIC is a federal food assistance program for low-income pregnant women and children under the age of 5.)
The 38,000-square-foot grocery store is the anchor tenant of the Linwood Shopping Center, which the city purchased in 2014. Sun Fresh opened in the summer of 2018 under the operation of John and Pam Lipari. CBKC took over the store in 2022.
As the store has struggled — it lost $1.3 million in 2023 — the city has continued to invest in the shopping center. In November, the city council approved an additional $750,000 to the shopping center’s CID for to cover additional security and improved lighting. That’s on top of millions more since the city bought the shopping center in 2014.
Pierson says it’s not enough. Asked what could be done to improve the worsening situation, he said the city could “operate the shopping center in a ‘first class’ manner as outlined in our lease with KCMO.”
“Get control of the crime in their shopping center,” Pierson said. “Request police foot patrols during the hours of operation to augment existing private security for the summer months.”
Phil DiMartino with the Kansas City Police Department said they’ve already taken those steps.
“We continue to have increased patrols at 31st and Prospect,” DiMartino said. “And we (often) have saturation patrols in the area.”
Mayor Quinton Lucas noted to The Star in an email Friday that in just the past year, the city has opened a Community Action Network center, staffed by KCPD officers and city staff, across the street from store; collaborated with the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority and Kansas City Public Library to enhance safety in the area; and worked with KCPD to increase patrol activity there.
“During my nine years in office, including as a councilman for the area, we proudly have invested tens of millions of dollars to rebuild the shopping center, nearby infrastructure, and to attract further economic development to 31st and Prospect,” Lucas said. “We will keep doing all we can to return responsibly to a long-term positive outlook (there), evaluating all options, including reasonable city participation and further investment in the store’s future.”
He added: “Grocery stores operating one mile south at 39th and Prospect and one mile east on 31st Street show that a grocery operator can succeed in our urban core.”
Pierson said there is “presently” no consideration to sell the store. Asked about a rumor that Cosentino’s Market or Ball’s Foods had made offers for the store, Pierson said, “Neither are buying it, nor would they consider the idea.”
Third District At-Large Councilmember Melissa Patterson Hazley, who represents the area and previously described the situation at Linwood Shopping Center as an “emergency,” told The Star on Friday she wasn’t ready to comment on the situation, saying she was waiting to hear more information at a Finance, Governance, and Safety Committee scheduled for Tuesday.
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