At the top of Fayetteville Street in Durham, about a mile from the city’s bustling downtown, a Walgreen’s has closed. It sits idle in a mostly low-income, historic part of town whose prosperous edges are dotted with expensive, modern apartments and homes.
Not too far from the empty Walgreen’s, the former Heritage Square Shopping Center is also idle. All stores are shuttered. The former retail center is surrounded by chain-linked fencing, wrapped tight even as potential customers fill hundreds of new apartments and condos nearby.
Residents in the area depended on the eclectic Food World and a Family Dollar store that operated in the shopping center. When they closed more than a year ago along with the drug store, it created an improbable food desert near a part of Durham that has experienced unrivaled growth and unprecedented prosperity. The store closures combined with federal cuts to safety net programs to ensure low income, elderly people don’t go hungry, has local organizations looking for community solutions to keep them fed…