Eastside Food Co-op buys neighboring building to expand in northeast Minneapolis

Hoping to join a wave of grocery co-op expansions in the Twin Cities, Eastside Food Co-op at 2551 Central Av. NE. in Minneapolis has purchased a building right next door.

The co-op, which is seeking to raise $1.5 million by June 30 to launch a $6 million expansion, last month succeeded in purchasing a vacant commercial-residential property just to the south of the store, situated between itself and the bustling Holy Land Deli. The contract-for-deed purchase of the Love Lines building was made for $425,000 on May 7.

Eastside Co-op Board President Manisha Nordine and General Manager Amy Fields said the plans include razing the building and replacing it with much-needed parking for an expanded Eastside Food Co-op.

"We were having a really hard time trying to figure out how to more than double our sales floor [from 4,150 to 9,600 square feet], get our 65-foot trucks on the lot and still have adequate parking," Fields said. "We kept trying to fit everything together, and then that site became available. It was almost like a miracle."

Fundraising for the project continues with appeals to co-op members and others for stock purchases and/or interest-yielding loans. About 21 percent of the goal had been reached by Monday. If successful, the Eastside project would add to a spurt of food co-op expansions across the Twin Cities that are capitalizing on the growing consumer and lifestyle trends of demanding locally sourced, organically grown food.

For instance, Lakewinds Food Co-op is readying for the opening this month of a new store at Richfield's Lyndale Gardens; the Wedge Community Co-op is renovating a former Asian supermarket on Nicollet Avenue into a commercial kitchen and cafe; and Seward Community Co-op is set to hold a groundbreaking next month for its new Friendship Store on E. 38th Street in Minneapolis.

Along Central Avenue, the hoped-for expansion of the Eastside Co-op would add to a mini-redevelopment boom in the corridor, which a decade ago was dominated by forlorn, deteriorating storefronts.

Far less attractive, however, was the Love Lines building at 2535 Central Av. NE. While not exactly dilapidated, the hodgepodge, one-time funeral home had fallen into significant disrepair before it was offered for sale to small group of potential buyers, including the co-op, in a nonpublic sale.

At the rear of the tile-roofed building is a two-story house built in 1927, with an attached, two-story commercial addition tacked onto it in the 1930s. For many years, the commercial building was the Buchinger-Gearhart Funeral Home. In the 1970s it was converted into a real estate office and by 1991 it had become the Love Lines Christian prayer and crisis ministry.

Faced with a lack of parking space for an expanded co-op, Nordine said the idea of buying the Love Lines building ­— or at the least renting space there for the co-op's administrative offices — was first discussed a year ago. Inquiries were made to the ministry, initially without response.

But after Love Lines ceased operations in the building in November, its owners indicated a willingness to sell.

"When the option finally came up, we were ready to go," she said. "It was more than on our wish list. … It was on our dream list."