Letter to the editor: keep Sack & Save around

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Recently, the UNT System Board of Regents announced its decision to pursue acquisition of the Sack & Save between Avenue C and Interstate 35. An investigation by NBC showed that the owner and manager of Sack & Save hadn’t even been informed prior to the decision and is intent on stopping the university.

The UNT student body should support Sack & Save in stopping the university’s expansion.

Here’s why: Sack & Save is the only grocery store in walking distance of UNT and a huge number of students utilize the store on a daily basis. There’s no grocery store on campus and the next best thing anywhere close is the 7-Eleven on Oak.

But nearby residents would be dramatically affected by this too – for many people who are not students and do not own a car (a significant portion of the population in Denton), Sack & Save is the only grocery store accessible without paying to ride Denton’s notoriously imperfect bus system.

Sack & Save has been a cornerstone of the communities of this area for more than 30 years. All these reasons alone are enough to reconsider the Board of Regents’ proposal. Combined, they make a compelling case that UNT should take seriously. A grocery store in this location is desperately needed.

According to the university’s Master Plan, this area is designated for mixed-use development in which the university would own the land and construct housing units abutted to businesses partnered with the university or leasing from it. In the exact location where Sack & Save is currently, UNT’s plan proposes an “off-campus building” and a parking lot.

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that UNT needs more housing space and more services available to its students, but it is hardly inevitable that this particular space needs to be destroyed for that to happen. Chancellor Lee Jackson says the University intends to utilize this land grab to provide a service to the community. Yet Sack & Save provides an invaluable and irreplaceable service to its community already. UNT’s Board of Regents needs to soberly examine the consequences of destroying this grocery store.

For our part, as UNT students, we should speak our minds about this issue and hold University administrators accountable for the decisions they make on our behalf. It remains unclear if administrators will indeed use eminent domain to acquire Sack & Save, but we need to keep this issue in the daylight for our sake, for the sake of the community that surrounds and supports UNT, and for the sake of future students and Dentonites like ourselves.

Clinton McBride is a history and education junior at UNT. He can be reached at ClintonMcBride@my.unt.edu.

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