Eastside Expansion From the Expansion Committee of the Board (Jim, Ike, Dave, Redwood, Fern, and Kitty)
Exciting things are happening at the Eastside Store. The Eastside has been enjoying strong growth in sales over the last several years and is truly bursting at the seams! In order to better serve our members, we’re exploring possibilities to make the store bigger, increase customer parking, and improve working conditions. Last Spring we started to look at how we could do this. As we got more into planning a remodel/ addition, we quickly discovered that there wasn’t enough space on our existing site to meet our needs. At almost exactly the same time, the house directly across from the store became available, and the Board decided to buy it, with the intention of moving Staff parking from the adjacent lot to free up space for store expansion. We are pleased to announce that the Co-op now owns the house at 1001 Lansdale!
The house will provide much needed office and meeting space, staff rest rooms, space for our Facilities/Maintenance work, and a kitchenette/break room. Having this additional property opens up great new possibilities for expanding the store itself, and the Staff and Board can now move toward finding the most optimal use of our expanded footprint.
This is an expensive endeavor that will likely take years to complete, and there are lots of steps that need to be carried out in succession to ensure that our organization remains stable and sustainable. In the following order, broadly speaking, those steps are Feasibility, Construction Prep and Planning, Construction, and Preparation for opening.
We are now working on the first step… (more)