Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Gazette editor Miles Reed takes an in depth look at what's happening around the region in his podcast Read Between the Lines.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Welcome to the Read Between the Lines podcast. I'm your host Miles Reed. This week's guest is Eric Johnson, a Schenectady native who recently moved back to the area after decades away, and he now serves as president of the organization that's working to establish a food co op in Schenectady to coincide with Thanksgiving week when we're all thinking a lot about food. This week we're talking about food in Schenectady in particular. The movement to open a community owned grocery store in downtown Schenectady started about a decade ago. Today, that organization appears to be stronger than ever. In many ways, 2023 has been a watershed year for the group. This year alone, the coop's membership has doubled to more than 930 in recent days. The organization officially unveiled its rebranding after a decade as the Electric City Food Coop. The organization now goes by the name of the Electric City Community Grocery, complete with a nifty new logo stickers and a whole lot of passion. And finally, co op leaders are cautiously optimistic that they may have found a home after years and years of effort. In the past few years, they've received commitments in the form of upwards of five to $6 million in public and private support for a co op, and they're currently in talks with public officials and private interests about the final possible creation of a grocery store on Lower Erie Boulevard. But as our guest Eric Johnson likes to caution, there are still many details to work out. They've had their fits and starts in the past, to be sure. For now, though, as Eric sees it, there's good reason to be excited about a community grocery store on the horizon in the Electric City.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: You're listening to read between the lines with Gazette editor Miles Reed.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: Good morning, Eric, and welcome to the podcast.
[00:02:10] Speaker C: Thanks for having me today.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: So I want to jump right in right away and talk about the timetable on this co op. So what is the best case scenario that you're looking at and the realistic scenario also and where is this thing going to go the next year or two?
[00:02:24] Speaker C: Sure. So if you may know that we started out over ten years ago, and so with the award of the city ARPA grant for $1 million and the commitment from the county for $3 million, that's providing a big portion of the funding. But from a timeline perspective, we're working with Metroplex right now to secure our site on Lower Erie Boulevard. And once we have that site secured, we would expect that construction to be complete in 18 to 24 months. So basically 18 to 24 months from before Christmas.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: And that site, do you have financing all lined up or what is going to be the arrangement in terms of getting that site, buying it, leasing it.
[00:03:07] Speaker C: So we're still negotiating the site details with the county itself. We are working with a developer. Asparagus for developing a build out of that site, right now we're looking at a one story building with just a grocery store. Metroplex is interested in a little bit more density. There's a core sampling that's going to be done on the site to assure that it could even take multiple levels and once that's known, then the developer will make some decisions about the height.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Of the building and the Spurgeon family. You're talking about? Schenectady electric.
[00:03:38] Speaker C: Yep, that's right.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: And the site right now, so it's owned by them, do you believe? Ample parking right now?
[00:03:45] Speaker C: So yeah, currently the site where they demolished the buildings is owned by the county and they're just leveling the last building now and the plans that we've created, preliminarily would have 100 parking spots.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: For the grocery and that based on your projections, looks like that would be pretty sufficient for the flow.
[00:04:04] Speaker C: Yeah, there is a calculation based on square footage and also that site is at the terminus of ten different bus routes at the Gateway Park and bus station. So we expect that we're going to have people driving in and taking buses.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: To the store and that kind of gets to heart of one thing that I think is really critical. So public busing, what is the mission of a co op and what kind of population and community are you hoping that this would benefit?
[00:04:35] Speaker C: So the mission is to really provide healthy, affordable foods to our community members and to be democratically owned and operated.
We really want to be providing staple foods and local foods. There will be pricing that's affordable and also specialty products that's more high end. So we're working to really provide for the whole city of Schenectady, make sure that people have access. We do not have a component of our design to move people to the grocery. We're hoping that we can partner with organizations to enable that. As you probably know, there's a lot of the population that either doesn't have any car or has one car in the family. So we don't know exactly how to solve that. But first we've got to get our grocery store open and we can work on that.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: Know that is a long standing problem in Schenectady. Certainly sort of the availability or the lack of availability of a full service grocery store in Schenectady certainly been a dialogue that I've heard since I began at the Gazette almost 30 years ago now. Can you talk about the current situation? I know there's Price chopper on Eastern Parkway, there's an Aldi, but there is a lack of one. Can you just talk about it and what you think the impact is on the community?
[00:05:55] Speaker C: Yep. So right now I think it was at the turn of the millennium when the trading port closed in Lower Union Street. So that was the last full service grocery store in downtown Schenectady. Before that, it was an amp store. What we really have is a total lack of fresh groceries for the citizens of the city of Schenectady. If you just imagine wherever you're sitting, right? Like, how would you go about getting fresh food if you didn't have a car? Right. So it's an easier proposition if you have a car, if you have the convenience to drive to Niskuna or Upper Union Street, but if you don't have a car and think about what it's going to take to get fresh food, that's a problem that we want to solve. Obviously, we can't be in all places at all times, but we're hoping to start to solve this food problem with a downtown grocery.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Got you. And where does it stand in terms of the city review process? Have you been through that yet or is that something that's going to still have to happen?
[00:07:00] Speaker C: So without our site secured, everything is up in the air. So that's why we're working diligently to get our site secured. We had gotten a six month extension with the city for the $1 million in ARPA funding. We're now two months into that clock ticking. So we have not gone through any site design or approval with the city for permitting that's still to come. But we must be under with our site secured and beginning site design to secure that $1 million by the end of that six months.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: And I know that there's been I've seen a number of posts on social media about membership. Can you talk about the membership model and how things have gone in terms of getting new members over this past six months?
[00:07:48] Speaker C: Sure. So the members voted at the end of last year, I think it was December 20, eigth to change the model of membership from a one time $200 fee to a one time $25 fee. And part of the way that we could do that was because we had a decent chunk of public funding to support this project. Since then, I think as of this morning, we've almost doubled. So we're at 938 members hoping to get to 1000 by the end of the year for sure. We were below 500 at the beginning of the year. So it's been tremendous growth. I think that COVID was a very hard time for membership growth, but now that we're out of that, we're seeing strong growth and participation with the community.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: And what does that membership entail? So that's a one time fee and that entitles somebody to go forever.
[00:08:43] Speaker C: So anybody can stop at the co op. And that's very typical for cooperative grocery stores across the country. Where it really plays into effect is like participating in the democratic governance component, voting in board members, which drives all of the components of the grocery, and then there's a patronage refund. So once we are in the black, which we assume will be at year three, then there'll be a dividend or a refund based on patronage at the store.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: There are a couple of other co ops in this area that at this point are quite healthy, seem to be operating well. There's the Niscuna co op, which I know went through some rocky times, but it seems to have pulled itself out. And then there's the honest weight. Which of these two or either of them are you similarly modeled after?
[00:09:38] Speaker C: I would say we're similarly modeled in our governance approach and our devout support of one another. And that's one of the principles of cooperative economics, is supporting other cooperatives. And I think that that's where our similarities sort of end. We're going for a hybrid supermarket, which will be more of a food for the regular Joe and Jane. We want to make sure that we're providing affordable groceries for people and we really want to keep the community engagement, which they both do, but we're going to be our own co op.
We're partnering with National Cooperative Grocers. Who's? A national organization. It's a co op of co ops and they help manage over 200 co ops across the country. So the way that we know co ops in the Schenect area is a little bit different from the rest of the country. For instance, there's no volunteer worker model that we're going to use. That's something Honestweight does for an exceptional discount. We really want to have paying jobs that are helping lift our workforce. So we're not going to have a volunteer model. That's something that Honestweight does and it works well for them.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Speaking of Honestweight, then, can you just talk about there was an exploratory committee at one point with Honest Weight and you looked into possibly having some kind of a joint venture and that fell apart or it was discontinued. And why was that?
[00:11:17] Speaker C: Yeah, so it was a great dialogue with Honest Weight. I think it was about ten months long. And at the end of the day, they were concerned about they basically have some risk aversion. Right. So at the time, the inflation was starting to rise, food costs were not clear about where that was going and they really wanted to focus on their core store and they were worried that having an expansion would weaken their foundation of success. So we're still super supportive and thankful for Honest way for working with us. They're still lending help to us. We've actually got one of their former general manager. He's on our board of directors and their former marketing manager is on our board of directors. So we love those guys and really look forward to collaborating in the future.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: And speaking of the different model, so once you roll out and you actually get opened up, how many paid staff in terms of a general manager and staffers clerks, et cetera, what's the ballpark range that you're going to be looking at to start with?
[00:12:20] Speaker C: So to start with, it'll probably be. I'm thinking that it's like 50 to I'm sorry, 25 to 50 employees that we're going to have to stock the store. We're planning on a 12,000 square foot grocery, which is about 8000 in the front of office and then 4000 back of house.
So that's about where we're thinking 25 to 50.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: So I spent a fair bit of time traveling in the Northeast, visiting kids at colleges and hiking, et cetera. So I've spent time just in the last couple of months at two co ops that have certainly been intriguing. There's one in Middlebury, Vermont, that I thought was very vibrant. And also I was at one recently in Northampton and Massachusetts. They seem to sort of teeter on the side of, like, a health food market as much as a co op. How at all might your co op sort of be similar to those? They're vibrant in really bustling communities. Is there any similarities, or is this a different beast?
[00:13:20] Speaker C: Miles that's a great question. When I go into co ops around the like, my initial impression is how warm and vibrant the places are. The people that are working there are happy, they're helpful. The product selection is good, usually local food, but the energy in a food co op is always sort of off the charts. It's like people are excited to be there.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:13:45] Speaker C: And that's what we're going for in our community co op. So we want to make sure that the employees feel engaged, empowered to participate in their work, and that our customers are able to get what they need. And if they're not able to, they have an avenue to ask for it. So really, having community engagement makes the whole environment just feel more at home for everybody.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: One of the things I noticed, and it seems like a very new thing, is sort of a rebranding that seems to have happened. I just noticed with the stickers that you had at the Schenectady Holiday Parade. So explain to me. So the stickers say Electric City Community Grocery.
Are you dropping the word co op in your name or explain what's going on?
[00:14:31] Speaker C: So the reason that we went for a rebranding was that we felt like that the group of people that had been engaged in participating in the movement and through just quantitative research of our membership, were mostly Caucasian, middle aged people. And we really want to make this an inclusive movement for all people in Schenectady. Right. Black and brown community, everybody LGBQT and make sure that everybody feels included. So it was really Bashir, who owns Simone's Downtown, was our marketing lead for a while, and he really felt that we ought to take a look at a more inviting rebranding to open it up to everyone. We received a $20,000 grant from the Schenectady Foundation, which a small portion of that we used towards this rebranding, and we're really happy with it. I think we had about 100 members and just regular citizens give feedback on it. With regards to the co op, we still are a co op. That is our business name. We'll be doing business as the new brand.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: So the name on the brand, the store, will be the community grocery that you open up.
[00:15:50] Speaker C: Gotcha.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: So that actually brings up something interesting to me as a lifelong resident in the Capitol region is you are the son of Karen Johnson, an early pioneer in terms of a progressive woman in city politics. So your mother was the first woman elected mayor in the 1980s. I was just wondering if you could talk about that legacy and how that's affected or informed your involvement in the community.
[00:16:17] Speaker C: Sure. Yeah. Thanks. Really proud of my mom, Karen, and having spent time with her towards her end of life, it really helped me reengage with Schenectady after having been away for quite some time.
She really believed that anybody that wanted to make a difference in a community could make a difference. And so when I got involved with the co op, I saw that there was a real need for a change in the way that we're dealing with food in the city. So it's been obviously an honor to grow up under her shadow and learn from her and just know that anybody can step up and make a difference. And it's a way that I can participate to make a difference here for Schenectady. And actually, Karen was one of the early members of the co op, so I'm proud to pick up the torch and move it forward.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: And so your mom, she died in 2019, and that certainly left a legacy here. Do you see any kind of interest in your own in terms of getting involved with politics going forward?
[00:17:26] Speaker C: So I have a full time job right now, and it interests me. I work in transforming the electrical grid, and I also want to make a difference in our civic engagement here in Schenectady. I think there's plenty of ways to do that without being involved in politics. I am very thankful to our elected officials who do lead our city and county. I think they're doing a great job. They're going through some growing pains over time, and that's a normal I don't I don't have any plans to interject myself into guest.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: Thanks for joining us today, Eric, and best of luck to the co op.
[00:18:02] Speaker C: All right, thank you very much. Have a good holiday.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: You're listening to read between the lines with Gazette editor Miles Reed.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: Eric Johnson likes to talk about the long game. As president of the co op board, he's a realist co ops. He likes to say aren't build it and they will come ventures. Rather, they are grown, organized, and owned by the people who see the problem and they know it needs to be solved. People like him and the dozens of others who have poured their heart and their time into this effort over the past decade. But in addition to being a realist, Johnson is also an optimist. He believes in the politics of flourishing. The co op movement, he explains, is about abundance, not scarcity. Under his leadership, the organization is moving forward with the belief that everyone is welcome. They have a collective voice. Participation in the movement makes a difference to how individuals feel about their community, about their future, Johnson says. Our community, our future. We are not either or, he says. Rather. Rather, we are both. And we, he says, are the Electric City Community Grocery.
