Quoted Text

SCHENECTADY
Effort aimed at bringing co-op into city
BY KELLY DE LA ROCHA Gazette Reporter

    Katherine Wolfram thinks now is the perfect time to start a local and natural foods cooperative in Schenectady.
    She cites the rise in gas prices and the increasing popularity of locally grown food as two factors in her thinking.
    The Niskayuna resident is scoping out storefronts and has started two surveys to see if area farmers, vendors and residents would be interested in participating in a close-to-home, volunteer-run co-op that ideally would be open for business six days per week.
    “The basis of it would be local foods — locally produced maple syrup, jellies, soaps and locally manufactured things, local produce and fruits, only pastured meats and eggs from cage-free animals,” she explained. “There are quite a few farmers starting to do all this, and we have local farmers around here but they need more markets to keep them going.”
    The co-op would also stock bulk foods and spices as well as fair-trade products not available from local producers.
    “I hope to layer it so there’s maybe the more expensive organic [foods] and then just regular stuff that’s maybe not organic but it’s cheaper that way. People can afford it, but it’s still good and whole. There would be nothing in the store at all with high-fructose corn syrup,” she said adamantly.
    Patrons would have an opportunity to buy shares in the co-op, although it wouldn’t be a requirement to shop there.
    Wolfram envisions the market in downtown Schenectady or on a corridor that leads downtown, within easy reach of Interstate 890.
    When she was doing research for her business plan, the thing she heard often was that people who work in downtown Schenectady would love to be able to go to a grocery store before they leave work to go home, “and there’s no good way for them to get to a grocery store easily here now,” she said.
    Chuck Steiner, president of the Chamber of Schenectady County, says Wolfram’s concept is a timely one.
    “We can see with the greenmarket what a huge success story that is,” he said. He added that all of the community gardens going in are evidence that fresh produce is “very, very viable and the marketplace has a strong interest for that.”
    But new small businesses have a relatively low success rate, he noted.
    “You’re probably looking, in the first three years, at two-thirds or more [of the businesses closing]. It’s not for the faint of heart to go into business,” he said.
    Don Bisgrove, general manager of the Niskayuna Co-Op, which has been in business for 68 years, worries there won’t be enough clientele to support a downtown co-op.
    “In low-income areas, they’re looking for what they can buy, like [at] a Price Rite, at a good price, that has just basic stuff. They’re not looking for gourmet or organic natural, gluten-free, all that sort of stuff,” he said.
    A site near Union College might do well, he suggested.
    “You need that tie to a well-educated audience that wants to eat better and knows about buying better food and really is able to do that,” he said. .................>>>>..................>>>>..................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01101&AppName=1

Sounds like a good idea. But if there were that much of a demand.....one would think that a market would have opened already in that area........yes?

a few million dollar grant will be needed

Great idea -- The Coop does a wonderful job up in Niskayuna and has many customers from far and wide.  Our family has belonged to it for many years.  I am positive that it will do well downtown.

No problem with it as long as the city, county, or metroplex doesn't steal from the homeowners by making the homeowners pay the prop & school taxes.

This is an idea who's time has come --- The Coop does a tremendous service to the fine people of Niskayuna and in my mind -- it is FAR superior to Price Chopper..  I would NOT patronize Price Chopper if it had the last remaining morsel of food available on the Planet..   ALL members of my family concur with that and would NEVER set foot in one of Mr. Golub's dumps..... The coop WILL succeed in the City.

The Niskayuna Co-op is a community treasure with over 12,000 members and did help start a Mt Pleasant Co-Op back in the day. The Mt P Co-op failed due to lack of neighborhood support. Downtown needs a food market but does not have the upscale residents to support it. Stockade residents would not even support old Arthur's Market. Price Chopper has plans to build a small market near its HQ. That will have to do.

Quoted from benny salami

The Niskayuna Co-op is a community treasure with over 12,000 members and did help start a Mt Pleasant Co-Op back in the day. The Mt P Co-op failed due to lack of neighborhood support. Downtown needs a food market but does not have the upscale residents to support it. Stockade residents would not even support old Arthur's Market. Price Chopper has plans to build a small market near its HQ. That will have to do.

I agree with most of what you say --- but I think the demise of Arthur's Market was due to a change of management (when one owner who had run it quite well retired) then new owners came in and made some changes that apparently didn't sit well with its regular customers.

As for the MP Coop -- most of the people who bought memberships were families like mine who lived in the suburbs but attended churches in the neighborhood and wanted to help the neighborhood get a decent store.

Quoted Text

SCHENECTADY
Old Grossman’s site offered for new food co-op
BY KELLY DE LA ROCHA Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Kelly de la Rocha at 395-3040 or kdelarocha@dailygazette.net.

    A potential site has been identified for a local and natural foods co-op planned for Schenectady.
    At a meeting Thursday, co-op initiator Katherine Wolfram of Niskayuna announced that Ray Legere, owner of Legere Restorations in Schenectady, has approached her about opening the co-op in a portion of the old Grossman’s Bargain Outlet building at 1410 Erie Boulevard, which she said his company owns.
    “We’re just talking right now, but he has offered it,” she said. “He said he would really like to have something like that in there. … There’s lots of parking and it has really good access to the Stockade, Union College, SCCC and downtown.”
    Wolfram brought architect Lara Turney to look at the building.
    “She likes the feel of it too,” Wolfram said.
    She hopes to open the co-op this summer or fall.
    The next step for the co-op is to get a committee together to formulate bylaws and organize a board.
    “Then we can really make decisions,” she said. .......................>>>>......................>>>>..................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01002&AppName=1