| By Big Radio News Staff |
A Madison company plans to bring a new grocery store to Janesville’s south side.
The Janesville city council is being asked Monday to OK a $50,000 grant from leftover city ARPA funds to spur the project.
The city says Madison-based Santa Maria Supermarket plans to sink $500,000 into a renovation at 1820 Center Avenue. That’s a strip mall next to the former Rock County Job Center.
Santa Maria would bring a fresh-food grocery, retrofitting about 12,000 square feet of space to run the store.
That’s smaller than the 60,000-square-foot former Pick n Save on Center Avenue, but it’s four times the size of the small-format grocery Roman’s Market that ran on Center Avenue in 2021 and 2022 before relocating to Beloit.
Kwik Trip said earlier this year it plans to demolish the former Job Center next door to build a 9,200-square-foot gas station convenience store.
If both projects went on at once, it would bring major reuse to what for years has been a mostly idled retail zone.
City of Janesville Economic Development Director Jimsi Kuborn says Santa Maria hopes to open by early 2025.
The store would have a butcher, bakery, shelf-stable and frozen foods, plus fresh produce. It also would have a small taqueria inside.
