A Kroger sister brand is set to fill a long-empty JCPenney at Bolger Square in Independence, Missouri, after the city council unanimously green-lit the grocery replacement.
City council members in Independence approved a plan for Dillons to take over the former JCPenney site at Bolger Square, The Sun reported. The vote was unanimous. Officials also signed off on rezoning changes that return the property to the status it held before a zoning shift three years ago.
JCPenney left Bolger Square six years ago. The box has sat empty while other retailers kept drawing traffic. Target, LongHorn Steakhouse, and Merchant Square already anchor the center. A full-service grocery is the kind of everyday draw those big-box leftovers rarely deliver on their own.
Phillips Edison Group, the Cincinnati-based real estate firm tied to the project, said the Dillons will include a drive-thru, a pharmacy, and a gas station. That mix is standard Kroger-family hardware: one-stop shopping meant to pull weekly trips, not occasional mall runs.
The Independence project fits a wider pattern. Department stores have been shedding locations for years. Grocery chains with fuel, pharmacy, and prepared food have been among the few formats still willing to take large suburban footprints and put them back to work.
Reporting on the new Dillons put the store at about 99,000 square feet, with an expected opening sometime in 2027. Amenities flagged for the concept include a Murray’s Cheese Shop with domestic and imported cheeses and gourmet olives, specialty departments Kroger banners use to compete with both conventional grocers and upscale alternatives.
Kroger, the parent company, has been pushing major Dillons developments in the same stretch of months. In June it announced groundbreaking on a separate Dillons in Wichita, Kansas. Steve Dreher, division president of Dillons Stores, said the company was “thrilled” with the announcement and tied the Kansas project to local demand.
Dreher said:
“This new store is a testament to our commitment to providing innovative, one-of-a-kind shopping experiences that meet the needs of our customers while supporting the vitality of Wichita.”
That quote is about Wichita, not Independence. The point still lands for shoppers watching empty anchors: Kroger’s Dillons banner is putting capital into large new stores while older soft-goods chains keep closing doors.
Independence did not invent a subsidy scheme to force the deal. The council’s work was more basic. Members approved the replacement and restored zoning so the site could function again under rules closer to its earlier commercial status. Private capital, a national grocer’s sister brand, and a clean local vote did the rest.
Bolger Square already had national names. What it lacked was a full grocery with fuel and pharmacy. Six years of vacancy after JCPenney’s exit is a long time for any shopping center to carry dead square footage. A 2027 target is not overnight relief. It is still a concrete plan where there had been an abandoned department store.
JCPenney has announced other openings and closures in recent months, a sign the brand is still reshuffling its map. Kroger, through Dillons, is doing the opposite at Bolger Square, claiming space the apparel retailer left behind and turning it toward food, medicine, and gas.
Empty retail boxes do not fill themselves. When a grocery chain steps in, a city council clears the zoning, and a shopping center gets another daily-needs anchor, taxpayers get commerce instead of another hollow storefront, and that is how main street recovery is supposed to look.