It took only 90 days for a Minneapolis neighborhood food co-op to raise $1.5 million in member loans earlier this year to fund a building renovation at a new location. That commitment on the part of 200 member-owners helped the
Linden Hills Co-op Grocery and Deli attract $2 million more in financing from outside sources, including the City of Minneapolis, Peoples Bank and Northcountry Cooperative Development Fund.
The new store opened last week with 50 percent more retail space to accommodate a growing customer base, says Allie Mentzer, the co-op's marketing and member-services manager. That increase was reflected in sales as soon as the second day in the new location, when the store took in $43,300. That's a 46 percent increase over the sales for the same day a year before, Mentzer says.
Customer enthusiasm for the new store also showed up in the number of members the co-op enrolled in the first two days: more than 30. That's as many as sign up in the average month. Membership now stands at more than 5,000.
The opportunity to stay in Linden Hills yet gain room to grow in an existing building was rare: the neighborhood boasts only a couple of commercial buildings of sufficient scale. So the co-op's board acted quickly when the owners of the former Almstead's Sunnyside Market made their building available for lease in the summer of 2009. They signed on for 15 years, with first crack at purchase when the lease is up or before if the owners decide to sell.
The new location is seven blocks away, at Linden Hills' other commercial node.
The co-op took on higher renovation costs to bring the building up to LEED certification standards for environmental sustainability, with green coolers, freezers, lighting and the like. (The board opted to leave its rooftop solar array behind for the next occupants of its former building, saving an anticipated $30,000 in moving costs.)
But the co-op, in the far southwestern corner of Minneapolis, continues to draw increasing numbers of customers from nearby suburbs as well as from other parts of the city. "We saw sales go up even in the economic recession," Mentzer says. "It's pretty remarkable."
Here's a video from Linden Hills Co-op's opening day last week: