After Rocky Start, Tony's Fresh Market Renovating Joliet Kmart

JOLIET, IL — After getting off to a slow start, representatives of Tony's Fresh Market are finally turning the vacant Kmart into a grocery store at Joliet's busiest intersection.

The Joliet City Council approved a tax incentives package for Tony's last December, and city officials were hoping Tony's would have its grand opening in 2021.

In early May, two large inflatable rats were positioned along Joliet's busy Larkin Avenue corridor as part of an organized effort by Laborers Local 75 to draw attention to their labor dispute with Tony's Fresh Market at the former Kmart property.

Tony's had chosen to use out of town non-union contractors to perform the interior demolition work at the Kmart. After the inflatable rats went away, construction work at the Kmart site went idle for several months. Tony's let the Kmart property deteriorate as tall weeds were growing out of the sidewalks, prompting Joliet city officials to notify Tony's that it still needed to keep the property respectable.

"Landscaping is going to be taken care of," a representative of Tony's Fresh Market told Patch for a story published July 6. "We intend to build a beautiful store. Nothing has changed from our perspective."

Since September, Tony's Fresh Market has put up a chain-link fence toward the front of the building, and there is also a construction trailer office parked on the property.

On Monday, Joliet Patch saw several contractors working inside the Kmart building.

According to Joliet's tax incentives package, Tony plans to hire at least 100 full-time workers and another 150 part-time workers for its new grocery store at 1801 W. Jefferson St.

Kmart closed the retail store in December 2016. The 100,000-square-foot store was built in the 1960s.