Downtown may get co-op grocery store

St. Catharines residents living near the Downtown area may soon have a much easier time with their grocery shopping.

The City's Ad-Hoc Budget Committee has decided to grant $2,500 to the local advocacy group Our Community Food Store to fund a study to see if a co-op grocery store would be viable in the downtown area. The study, which has not yet begun, will be run by Masters students in the Brock University Business Department, and will focus mainly on whether such a store would be financially self-sustaining, and what the likely start-up costs would be.

"People started to get together early last year over a lack of good food," said Rowan Shirkie, a local businessman and one of the founding members of Our Community Food Store. "It's what we called a ‘good food gap'."

Food co-ops have existed since the nineteenth century, and are based around the co-ownership of the business by its users. Shirkie suggested several ways to fund the business — such as a subscription fee — but he said that no one will know what the specifics of the business structure will be until the study is complete. Shirkie, however, is optimistic, and said that the store will only be the first of several co-operative businesses he foresees opening in the Downtown area.

"In the utopia we imagine two-to-three years out," said Shirkie, "we think that we can manage a pay-what-you-can sandwich bar," as well as many similar operations.

According to Mark Elliott, a City Councillor and member of the City's Downtown Development and Revitalization Committee, there is still quite a lot to do before even the store can be put together.

"[Our Community Food Store] has a lot of ideas of what they'd like to do," said Elliott, "and they will see if those ideas are feasible.

"Once they discover if it's feasible, they are next going to look where the money is going to come from [...] and they will have to look for a good location."

Both Shirkie and Elliott have said that constructing a new building will be unlikely, as the locations where the store would have to be are already built-up. Shirkie mentioned a couple of newly built locations that had been considered, but he said that the owners were looking for tenants who could start immediately – which was far too soon. Once the time comes to select a location, Shirkie said that possible locations have been considered in the areas around Westchester Avenue and St. Paul Street, as well as the vicinity of Carlton Street and Highway 406.

According to Elliott, the Ad-Hoc Budget Committee sees the food co-op as part of the City's larger plan to revitalise the Downtown area. Though the Downtown was once the City's commercial center, Elliott said that very few of the businesses have been able to survive the introduction of big-box store like Wall Mart on the outskirts of the city. Both Elliott and Shirkie, however, think that a co-op would be able to survive.

"The world of retail has changed," said Elliott, "but one of the stores that have survived is the niche, boutique retail [...] these types of stores can really turn on a dime."

Though the Ad-Hoc Budget Committee's decision is not binding, it will be part of their recommendation to City Council once the annual budget comes up for a vote this March. Both Elliott and Shirkie were confident that it will pass.