Our remodel has been in the works for years – here’s a little background on our upcoming project.

Expansion updates from our August 2013 Lextalk newsletter:

It’s a daily occurrence that someone stops me in the aisles and suggests “the perfect spot” for our second Lexington Co-op store.  I love this.  It is wonderful to work at a business that is desired by so many communities! 

We recently had a market study done and it reinforced for us the opportunities that exist in WNY for multiple co-op grocery stores.  This is very exciting because it helps us advance our dreams of more co-op stores closer to more people.  It also helps us to see the that there is great potential to expand the market for local growers & producers, to reach more people with our friendly, welcoming co-op experience, and to grow the co-op economy with more groceries bought at a co-operative enterprise. 

 As I write this, we have just completed planning our next fiscal year at 807 Elmwood.  I’m proud to say that we have some wonderful plans to continue to improve on the great thing we already have going in our “first” store.  Chief among those plans is a remodel of our 807 store to expand the departments you love and to add in an excellent beer selection.    Rest assured we’ll be using your 2 cent forms and other feedback to inform our designs and plans.  We hope to have this remodel completed by late next summer. 

 While we plan and execute a remodel of our current store, we do so with an eye and mind to developing our second and possibly third stores over the next 3-5 years.  I’ll be working this fall with co-op development experts who will help us test feasibility on our ambitious plans and help us with next steps that include:  building our organizational capacity to handle all this growth, checking financial assumptions, assessing site opportunities, discussions with lenders for financing possibilities and working with store designers.  

We are anxious, as many of you are, to embark on this exciting next step in Lexington’s evolution, but we will be planned and measured throughout to ensure the long-term financial health and well-being of our co-operative enterprise.  We’ll also find more ways to engage with owners throughout the coming months on the topic of our BIG Direction goal of a phenomenal co-op in every community that wants one. 

I know that this update is short on specifics and that is because we are at the beginning stages of this process.   As always, I encourage you to send me your thoughts on what you find exciting about what I’m talking about here and also what concerns you have. You can e-mail me at tim@lexington.coop. 

From January 2014:

If you’ve been around a while, you probably already know about our Shared Vision to double our impact by 2015, with more local food, more sustainable practices, and more happy people flowing through the co-op.  We are now actively searching for a site to open a second store. Where will it be?  We don’t know yet! In our move to Elmwood Avenue in 2005, our search was limited to “Elmwood between Forest and North”.  This time we have a lot more flexibility.  Our BIG Direction goal is to have a thriving co-op in every community that wants one by 2051.  So for our second store, we are simply looking for the best possible location.  The best location will be the most visible, accessible to the most current and potential co-op members, and will have the greatest opportunity to generate sales of the great local and organic foods we offer.  Specifics of real estate decisions are always kept under wraps until a site is secured, so please keep letting us know where you want to see our second store and we’ll let you know when we find our spot.

We are also hard at work on planning a remodel of our Elmwood store, with wider aisles, better lighting,  more of the foods you love and the long awaited addition of craft and local beer offerings.  Our goal is to finalize our planning this winter and complete the remodel this July-August.  Look for the designs in the next newsletter!