Plan to put a gourmet grocer on Zoo Atlanta parking deck fizzles

After months of moving at a sloth’s pace, plans to build a gourmet grocery store atop a city-owned parking deck near Zoo Atlanta have stopped.

Savi Provisions will not move forward with its planned location at the Grant Park Gateway development, a parking deck that features green space on its roof, Atlanta leaders said Tuesday during a Community Development/Human Resources Committee meeting.

The roughly 7,000-square-foot retail storefront atop the garage has remained vacant since the deck’s completion in 2021, and the city has struggled to bring retail plans to fruition within the space. The change of plans by Savi Provisions, a fast-growing neighborhood market chain across metro Atlanta, puts on pause the hopes of neighborhood residents awaiting a new fresh food option.

Rachel Maher, a deputy commissioner with Atlanta’s Department of Parks and Recreation, said Atlanta leaders could strike an agreement with Terminus Commercial Real Estate Partners to lease the space. She said Terminus would build out the store with “three fresh food vendors, a deli-style counter, a grab-and-go market, coffee and tea, a full-service bar and a seating area with high-top counters.”

The committee voted to endorse the Terminus plan, which will need to go before the full City Council for final consideration.

An attempt to reach Savi Provisions CEO Paul Nair late Tuesday was not immediately successful.

First announced in 2017, the $48 million project transformed a parking lot near Grant Park and Zoo Atlanta into the greenspace-topped parking deck.

The project at 800 Cherokee Ave. faced some neighborhood backlash over the removal of more than 130 healthy trees, which the city said would be replaced. The City Council issued more than $30 million in bonds to finance the project. In addition to parking fees, the city planned to collect revenue from the rooftop retail space.

It took multiple rounds of requests for proposals before the city selected Savi Provisions in June to build out a grocery store on the deck. Invest Atlanta, the city’s economic development arm, in December approved nearly $8.2 million in incentives to Savi Provisions to build the Grant Park grocery store and another location on Campbellton Road.

Nair, the Savi Provisions’ CEO, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last month that he’s struggled to ink an insurance deal for both locations.

“We went to try to get liability insurance, and 15 out of the 17 refused to underwrite the insurance,” Nair said. “Our premiums were extremely high. At some point, it kind of defeats the purpose we’re trying to do — addressing food deserts.”

He argued that the law recently signed by Gov. Brian Kemp to limit lawsuits and bring down jury awards — an effort he and proponents called “tort reform” — would help stabilize insurance premiums. Little notice, however, was given for Savi Provisions’ change in plans in Grant Park.