Medcalf: Why Cub Foods closure in Midway is such a big blow to the community

Tim Wilson’s understanding of music history — he owns St. Paul’s Urban Lights, the only Black-owned record store in Minnesota — is unmatched. His business is in a neighborhood at a crossroads, prompting him to reminisce about the past, too.

Long before a light rail line cut through the city’s Midway area, there was foot traffic attached to local businesses that no longer exists. The August closing of the Midway Cub Foods has only punctuated the dramatic overhaul of the area in recent years.

“I mean, gentrification is in progress for sure,” Wilson said. He adds that he thinks it’s sad how the routines of people with limited resources for transportation will be disrupted as they figure out how to get to a different grocery store. Before, they were used to taking the bus or train and stopping at Cub.

The closing of Cub Foods in Midway — its owners claimed to understand the impact in a statement — only expands the challenges for a community that’s lost several grocery options lately. There are alternatives nearby, but some of those stores are more expensive and less convenient for residents, many of whom do not own vehicles.

Nearly 20 years ago, I covered community meetings about the light rail line when I worked as a St. Paul city hall reporter for the Minnesota Star Tribune. Those meetings were contentious because community members believed the light rail line could both alter the makeup of the area and push the community into the shadows of big development projects.

But Anika Bowie, the City Council member who represents Ward 1, said the loss of Cub Foods creates both challenges and opportunities for the area, which will soon have a new luxury hotel and other new businesses near Allianz Field.

“The Midway Cub closure is challenging. It’s been a trusted grocery store for so many families in the Midway for decades — through the pandemic, the uprising, and everything in between,” Bowie said in a statement. “It leaves a real void, especially for BIPOC residents who’ve relied on it for ethnic foods.

There is value in that idea. Other businesses that supply food in the area may now have a better chance to connect with a community searching for a new grocery hub. But the area’s needs are complicated. Just ask Julia McCarthy, director of programs for Keystone Community Services, which operates a food shelf in Midway.

In 2023 and 2024, the number of food shelf visits increased, she said, and Keystone had the ability to meet those needs. But Cub Foods was a supply source for the food shelf, McCarthy said. That means the closing of the store will also directly affect the food-supply chain throughout the community.

“You’re talking about grocery stores, [and] probably about 30 or 40 percent of the food that we give out is donated by grocery stores,” she said. “So shops like Cub Foods and Target and Costco, they all have a role in the kind of work that we do, too. So they’ll donate food that’s near the expiration date or somehow got overstocked, and that’s how we get a lot of our fancier produce and sometimes meats and things that we couldn’t afford otherwise.”

The narrative about the Snelling and University intersection and the nearby neighborhoods often focuses on its challenges. While the community is full of good people, the rate of homelessness and drug use — sometimes in broad daylight — complicates the perception of the area.