06-06-2025
Developer introduces plans for a new town center in Glenwood
BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – Community members gathered in Glenwood Thursday to learn more about a potential grocery store development. For years, the area has been deemed a food desert.
Residents got to learn more about the developer who is looking to add not just a grocery store to the area, but a completely new plaza.
This has been a long time coming, the Glenwood area could soon see some action on their efforts to bring a grocery store to the area, ending the years-long food desert.
On Thursday night, dozens of residents got to hear from the Sankofa group, the development agency that is heading the project.
They introduced the Glenwood Town Center, a mixed-income, 3-phase development that will include apartments, townhouses, and, of course, a grocery store. It would be located on the corner of East 15th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
While the grocery store was favored by many in attendance, the developer made it clear that they did not intend to build affordable housing, which many residents were asking for.
It also raised concerns over the housing outpricing those who have lived in Glenwood their whole lives.
'Being a legacy family member, there are several people who would like to move back to Glenwood. People who moved away up north, down south to make a living, really would like to come back to Glenwood, would like to come back to Panama City,' Glenwood resident Michelle Bryant said.
The developer says he would need the housing in the complex in order to draw in a grocer to fill the property. As for what kind of grocer it will be, they don't one yet but say it will be comparable to a Trader Joe's or Sprouts.
All of this is conceptual and still awaits approval from the community redevelopment agency that owns the land.
'He brought this to us and we're negotiating a contract now, but we will fully discuss that and determine whether there's a green light for this particular development at the end of July at the C.R.A. meeting. It would be at that time if we were to say, hey, we like what you've presented. Let's move forward with this,' Panama City Commissioner Janice Lucas said.
Lucas says if something were to change with the concepts, residents are welcome to voice their concerns with the CRA at their monthly meetings.
Representatives from the CRA were at the meeting and confirmed that the current CRA plans do allow for this kind of development, but they are currently working on updating the plans to more specifically address this project.
There is no set timeline, but the developer said Thursday he expects a project like this one to take about 6 to 7 years to fully construct.
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