{"id":734114,"date":"2026-04-17T09:13:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T09:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/734114\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T09:13:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T09:13:15","slug":"dallas-councilman-launches-1m-fresh-market-to-combat-east-oak-cliff-food-desert-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/734114\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas councilman launches $1M fresh market to combat East Oak Cliff &#8216;food desert&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The Brief<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"content-list\">\n<li>\n<p>Dallas Councilman Maxie Johnson is launching a fresh market in East Oak Cliff after major grocery chains like H-E-B declined to move into the area.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>The project uses $1 million in city funds and a private partnership to build a facility featuring on-site hydroponic systems for fresh produce.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Construction is expected to begin soon now that all necessary permits have been secured for the vacant site at Sunnyvale and Lea Crest.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>OAK CLIFF, Texas<\/strong> &#8211; Dallas&#8217; district four city councilman, Maxie Johnson, in East Oak Cliff says new supermarkets are going up in parts of Dallas, but not in his part of Oak Cliff.<\/p>\n<p>So, Johnson joined forces with a developer, and a grower of produce, to plant a fresh market in his district.<\/p>\n<p>Addressing the &#8220;food desert&#8221; gap<img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1242\" height=\"699\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0a9c830892186ad568e092e86acc1cf8.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Local perspective<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As the property is vacant at Sunnyvale and Lea Crest in East Oak Cliff, across the street from the Deerpath Shopping Center, Johnson says he can&#8217;t get big supermarket chains to move to this part of Oak Cliff.<\/p>\n<p>So he felt it was important to bring fresh vegetables and fruit to the neighborhoods.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In the past, we worked to get H.E.B here. They don&#8217;t want to come over here to Southern Dallas right now,&#8221; said Johnson. &#8220;I&#8217;ve met with them in my office, and we have not gotten the support that we need, so instead of beating a dead horse and steadily saying \u2018This is what we need,\u2019 we&#8217;re going to do something different.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>$1 Million partnership for Southern Dallas<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dig deeper<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What is different is the partnership that&#8217;s sprouted here. Between the landowner, a company called Mati-x who works in the fresh market space, and the city councilman who will help with the building that will go up here with a little more than $1 million city dollars.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1242\" height=\"699\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0a0e126561889f8f9dc47f5987594327.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Economic development discretionary funds for district four that we have we&#8217;re working with a young lady that&#8217;s over Mati -x and some of the developers we&#8217;ve gotten together, and we said what&#8217;s the need that we have in our community,&#8221; said Johnson.<\/p>\n<p>Future of East Oak Cliff<\/p>\n<p>The design includes a hydroponic system which will allow for greens and herbs to be grown fresh onsite. As city residents are sure, there is nothing else like this in East Oak Cliff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What&#8217;s next<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Maxie Johnson says all permits have been pulled, and the building work is now close to starting as they work to change the land and the landscape.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Source<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Information in this article was provided by FOX 4&#8217;s Shaun Rabb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brief Dallas Councilman Maxie Johnson is launching a fresh market in East Oak Cliff after major grocery&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":734115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,86280,1596,303372,303370,212226,303373,303371,10429,14054,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-734114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-america","tag-city-councilman","tag-dallas","tag-east-oak","tag-fresh-market","tag-fresh-produce","tag-hydroponic-systems","tag-maxie-johnson","tag-oak-cliff","tag-southern-dallas","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116419285649347637","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}