Common Ground Co-op expanding with move in August
Sunday July 13, 2008
URBANA – Common Ground Food Cooperative plans to open Aug. 22-23 at Lincoln Square Village with new products, longer hours and a lot more space.
The new location will have greater visibility too. Its entrance will be the old east-side entry to Bergner's department store, putting the co-op just a few steps away from the popular Saturday morning "Market at the Square."
The cooperative, now located in the Illinois Disciples Foundation building at Wright Street and Springfield Avenue in Champaign, plans to close in mid-August and reopen within 48 hours at the new site.
"Our focus will really be on food," general manager Jacqueline Hannah said.
The new 3,200-square-foot space, to be painted pea green, will have three times as much space for produce as its current space. The store will also have a bulk-foods section; a refrigerated section for milk and cheeses; and a frozen-food section featuring organic chicken, pork and beef from Triple "S" Farms of Stewardson – one of dozens of area farms supplying Common Ground with food.
Equipped with a kitchen, the new store will have a deli offering pastries, a salad bar and three hot soups made daily. There will also be a "grab-and-go" case for folks who want to pick up a sandwich. Outside will be a seating area for 30 to 35 people, surrounded by plantings.
The cooperative will stock nonfood items as well, carrying three times as many all-natural cleaning products as it does now.
With the move, Common Ground will have expanded hours: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week, Hannah said. At its current location, it's open only from noon to 8 p.m.
Plus, the food cooperative will be open to the general public, not just to members. Nonmembers will pay the same price for food and other products, but won't be eligible for special-event savings available to members.
The cooperative, which has been around for 33 years, has 1,600 members – more than double its membership of five years ago and up by 300 from two years ago, Hannah said. It emphasizes locally grown, organic foods and is one of only a few food cooperatives in Illinois.
Clint Popetz, the cooperative's board chairman, said Common Ground works to offer "products that are good for you, good for the Earth and good for the people harvesting the food."
By researching different products, "we do homework so the shopper doesn't have to," he said.
To help members put the products to their best use, Common Ground plans to offer cooking classes in its kitchen.
The cooperative's expansion – combined with Janet Bubin's plan to open a natural foods store in the former JBJ building on South Neil Street in Champaign – promises to make the local natural foods market more crowded.
That market already includes specialty stores such as Strawberry Fields in Urbana and Natural Gourmet in Champaign, as well as supermarkets that have beefed up their natural-foods offerings.
Hannah said she doesn't think the co-op's expansion will hurt other natural-foods stores.
"A rising tide raises all ships. Every natural-foods store in town will benefit," she predicted.
Because the demand for natural foods is booming, Hannah said, the Champaign-Urbana area is actually "incredibly underserved," She said cooperatives are thriving in smaller markets, such as Carbondale, that don't have demographics as strong as Champaign-Urbana's.
To finance the move and expansion, Common Ground took out $650,000 in loans from BankChampaign; the Local Enterprise Assistance Fund in Brookline, Mass.; the Northcountry Cooperative Development Fund in Minneapolis; and the cooperative's own members.
That included $250,000 in member pledges, with the cooperative still working to bridge a $10,000 gap that occurred when some members couldn't fulfill their pledges.
"We're doing an equity drive for new members," Hannah said. "We hope to add another 50 before we open."
Beyond selling organic and locally grown foods, Common Ground strives to compensate its vendors and employees fairly and to be ecologically conscious.
In preparing the new space, the cooperative took care not to use wall paints or concrete-floor finishes containing volatile organic compounds. It also tried to include environmentally friendly touches, such as low-flow toilets.
Common Ground has 10 employees, but Hannah said that's likely to grow to 18 once the cooperative is in its new space.
Hannah said the proximity to Market at the Square should help Common Ground build relationships with the farmers who sell there. She's also enthusiastic about the additional parking available at the mall.
There's also the potential for eventual expansion. The mall has additional retail space just to the north, and Common Ground would like to occupy it three to five years from now, Hannah said.
"It's exciting being part of Lincoln Square," she said. "I couldn't pick a place that's more the center and pulse of the community than Lincoln Square."
Find this article at:
