Melissa Alicia Simpson
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Become A MemberWhen the Kensington Corridor Trust asked residents what their Philadelphia neighborhood needed most, one answer came up again and again.
“One of the things that folks started to tell us in almost every single room that I was in was that people wanted a grocery store,” says executive director Adriana Abizadeh-Barbour, who since 2020 has led the pioneering neighborhood trust’s efforts to revitalize the corridor in partnership with residents.
“Folks talked about the fact that there wasn’t a grocery store on Kensington Avenue, and there hadn’t been for quite some time.”
Now, about six years later, that dream has become a reality through an unusual partnership between the community-controlled real estate entity and a locally-based gourmet food and wine importer, the Kensington Food Company.
Late last month, the Kensington Food Company opened the neighborhood’s first grocery store, with more than 100 locals in attendance. “You felt the love,” owner Thomas Sheridan recalls. “They flooded the store, the questions were great, people were making purchases … That day was amazing.”
Unlike a traditional developer, KCT acquires and stewards commercial properties on behalf of neighborhood residents, keeping rents affordable while allowing the community to shape redevelopment. It’s one of a growing number of community-controlled real estate models gaining momentum across the country, as Next City has reported previously.
Philadelphia’s Kensington Corridor Trust is a community-controlled commercial real estate entity that works to foster equitable economic revitalization of Kensington’s commercial corridor through local partnerships and strategic programming.
It specifically puts commercial spaces at the heart of its economic development strategy, with the aim of preventing gentrification and displacement in an disinvested area ripe for real estate speculation.
One of the first entities of its kind from a legal perspective, Kensington Corridor Trust emerged from a dialogue between community members and Shift Capital, a Philly-based real estate development firm created with a mission to revitalize disinvested communities.
In 2019, reporter Oscar Perry Abello covered KCT’s founding. Last year, he published a deep dive look at KCT’s model, its recent successes, and the challenges it still faces more than five years after its launch.
The trust had the building; Sheridan had the business. Together, they launched an affordable grocery store with a shared commercial kitchen designed to help other local food entrepreneurs grow.
Thomas Sheridan runs the Kensington Food Company. (Photo by Melissa Alicia Simpson)
Sheridan grew up in Kensington. His gourmet food import, production, and wholesale distribution business, founded in 2020, is based in Kensington. He even named it after his community.
“I’m sure the neighborhood isn’t asking for gold medal-winning extra-virgin olive oils, balsamics, and artisan pasta,” Sheridan says. “[But] I do believe once they are initiated to it, they would enjoy it and desire it. They deserve the right to experience it.”
A 2019 report by Philadelphia’s Department of Public Health found that 66% of all Philadelphia food retailers are corner stores, chain convenience stores, gas stations, dollar stores, and newsstands. Only 19% sell produce and healthier food options.
“This is a predominantly Black and Brown low-income neighborhood that, post-industrialization, has just seen continuous decline of investment,” Abizadeh-Barbour explains. “Bringing a grocery store to Kensington Avenue helps to disrupt that.”
But KCT is also thinking about the systemic issues that led to the lack of accessible, fresh, healthy, and affordable foods along this once-bustling corridor.
“There are disinvestments that have been made. There are policies that have been passed. There are efforts that have not been undergone to make sure that Kensington can have what it needs,” Abizadeh-Barbour tells Next City. This is not just across food; it’s across lots of different areas and systems.”
The term “food apartheid” was coined by food justice activist Karen Washington to make explicit the racist legacy of unequal access to food. “When we say ‘food apartheid,’” Washington told The Guardian, “the real conversation can begin.”
While the term “food desert” has become more socialized in recent years, advocates say it misrepresents the reality of the crisis for two reasons. First, the image of a desert conjures the idea of barrenness, whereas the communities often identified as food deserts still can and do have thriving food ecosystems. Second, the term “desert” makes it appear as if their lack of access to affordable fresh produce is a naturally-occurring phenomenon, rather than a design of systemic discrimination.
Read more from reporter Frances Nguyen in this story about the fight for food sovereignty in Indianapolis’ Northeast Corridor, another neighborhood left behind by corporate food giants.
Sheridan’s company also has a vending space at Philly’s iconic Reading Terminal Market, as well as two warehouses; a sauce production facility; a pasta production facility in Delaware County; and a bottling and packaging facility in Kensington. But in bringing fresh food to his own neighborhood, he has focused on affordability.
“I still make sure that my offerings here match what I think the community can handle or desire,” he says. Some of the goods here are priced at 30% less than at his Reading Terminal location, and the store accepts EBT payments. “I try to keep it as low as possible. You’ll find our products here lower than you will anywhere else in the country. If I’m doing this as part of giving back, then I should try my best to make it affordable.”
Josh Harris is KCT’s director of capital projects and sustainability. He says the neighborhood trust’s collaboration with Sheridan began in late 2023 when KCT was thinking of a possible operator for a grocery store.
In additional to gourmet and artisinal foods, Kensington Food Company's new store sells fruit, vegetables, meat, and dairy. (Photo by Melissa Alicia Simpson)
“Believe it or not, magically, Tom [Sheridan] just walked into our office one day and said, ‘Hey, I’m this Kensington kid and want to give back to the community. How can I help?’”
When KCT was founded in 2019, executive director Adriana Abizadeh-Barbour says, its leaders “spent a year in dialogue and conversation with neighbors and other small business owners, just to see what they felt [and] what they felt they wanted the trust to accomplish and achieve on the corridor.”
“One of the things that folks started to tell us in almost every single room that I was in was that people wanted a grocery store,” she says. “Folks talked about the fact that there wasn’t a grocery store on Kensington Avenue, and there hadn’t been for quite some time.”
Sheridan told the team about his vision for opening commercial kitchen space in the area for other small businesses to be able to use. KCT then showed Sheridan the building at 3462 Kensington Avenue, which KCT had acquired in April 2023 for $225,000.
Abizadeh-Barbour told Sheridan that they wanted the project to have a bit more value for the local community, allowing residents to interact more with the space. They told Sheridan about their idea for a grocery store, based on residents’ needs.
At first, he was unsure.
“Why that scared me is because my whole entire career has just been selling things that I import,” Sheridan explains. “But then she said the neighborhood wants it, and I love the neighborhood, so I said, actually, let’s just do it.”
The store’s grand opening late marked the end of a two-year renovation process. So far, about $800,000 have been invested into the cost of the building and renovations, with Sheridan investing $250,000 for equipment and the Department of Commerce contributing grant funding.
Harris, who spearheaded the renovation process, says that this was “the first full renovation completion since I’ve been [at KCT] — new utilities, new sewage, new electric, that sort of stuff.” He prioritized hiring subcontractors from within the 19134 ZIP code, especially people of color, to bring their vision to life.
They incorporated Sheridan’s original idea by adding a commercial kitchen space in the back of the store and upstairs, allowing local businesses to rent licensed kitchen space and expand food production. The shipping dock at the back of the store, facing Tioga Street, is also open to commercial renters.
The next step of construction is adding solar panels, a green roof, and other energy resilience improvements, funded by a grant from the Green Family Foundation. “[That] will pass on energy savings to both the grocery store and the shared commercial kitchen, further reducing their costs and improving the general carbon output in the neighborhood,” Abizadeh-Barbour says.
It’s all part of KCT’s mission of reactivating the commercial corridor for local businesses and residents, turning vacant properties into community-owned, fully-occupied, affordable storefronts, homes, and other uses. Abizadeh-Barbour says this, in turn, will boost residents’ physical and mental wellbeing.
KCT sees projects like the grocery store as more than economic development. The organization views community ownership of commercial real estate as a way to build wealth — and ultimately political power — for neighborhood residents.
“We’re a systems change model,” she says. “Historically … those who have amassed land, amass wealth. We want to build that same paradigm, right? Let’s amass some land to amass some wealth to amass some power, so we can change policy and change systems as a community — together, collectively.”
Pryce Jamison is Next City's Philadelphia-based Equitable Cities Reporting Fellow in partnership with Resolve Philly and its hyperlocal news project, Germantown Info Hub. Pryce was formerly Resolve Philly's engagement reporter. He is a graduate of Cabrini University’s digital communications program and has interned with Resolve Philly, the Bucks County Courier Times (now known as PhillyBurbs) and the Chestnut Hill Local.
Melissa Alicia Simpson is a multimedia journalist, techie, and recent Temple University graduate. The Philly native began her freelance career in 2012 and has since written for a host of Philadelphia-based news outlets including XPN the Key, Technical.ly Philly, and Grid Magazine. In addition to her media work, she has over five years of experience in information technology. Currently, Melissa explores her creative side through photography, publication design, and writing creative non-fiction.
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