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A Houston-area nonprofit organization wants to give an old Missouri City shopping center a new purpose when it comes to serving the community.
The Edison Arts Foundation has plans to restore the strip mall in an area known as Fort Bend, Houston so it could provide three things, according to Houston CBS affiliate KHOU.
"We're working to have affordable homes, affordable arts, affordable lifestyle,” president Charity Carter told the station.
Located near the corner of West Fuqua Drive and Blue Ridge Road, the abandoned shopping center was once considered a source of pride in the area.
A Kroger served as the anchor tenant.
It has seen better days, Carter said.
"This shopping center is blight, it is vandalized, it is graffiti,” she told KHOU.
Carter explained that she started Edison Arts Foundation with seed money given to her by her father.
Ample financial support enabled the nonprofit to build a 126-unit housing development that was dedicated in 2021.
Both the development and the once-thriving strip mall are part of the Edison Arts Foundation's 12 1/2-acre master plan, with an extra $4 million going toward the transformation of the former Kroger into a cultural center with a venue bearing former Houston Ballet principal dancer Lauren Anderson's name.
The space will also include a health clinic and small business incubator.
"The foundation is here," Carter told KHOU. "But we need a rehab, we need a revitalization.”
She added that it's "a hopeful project."
"It represents hard work and it represents the fruit of hard work," Carter told the station.