NY state, foundations poured money into Syracuse grocery that has closed. Again.Updated Jan 10, 8:22 AM; Posted Jan 10, 7:29 AM
http://www.syracuse.com/business-news/index.ssf/2018/01/south_side_food_co-op_closes_again_despite_400k_from_ny_taxpayers.html
The Eat to Live Food Co-op, 2323 S. Salina St. Syracuse has closed again. (Don Cazentre)By Teri Weaver tweaver@syracuse.com,
syracuse.com
Syracuse, N.Y. -
Eat to Live, the food cooperative on the city's South Side, has closed again.
It's the second time in about four years the member grocery store - which was
built with more than $1 million dollars in donations from Syracuse University and other area foundations - has shut its doors.
The Dec. 31 closure comes after
New York state also invested more than $400,000 into the project, money meant to jumpstart the store's operations and create enough work for four full-time employees.
The larger goal for Eat to Live called for putting an affordable grocery store with fresh produce into a "food desert" on South Salina Street. Instead of creating a traditional for-profit business, leaders formed a co-op, meaning members would run the store and share in any future profits. Anyone could shop there, whether they joined the co-op or not.
The market could survive, early plans showed,
if the store attracted $1.1 million in annual sales by its fifth year.
Last month, the co-op did about $3,000 in sales, according to Howie Hawkins, the secretary and treasurer of the cooperative. That couldn't come close to paying the $18,000 in monthly costs, he said Tuesday.
[...]
The market first opened in October 2013 after several sources, including SU, the Gifford Foundation and the Central New York Community Foundation,
donated more than $1 million to build the building.
Yet troubles plagued the market from the beginning. Within a couple of weeks of opening, the general manager at the time was fired.
Within two months of that 2013 opening, the store closed. By February 2014, a former board member said the place was running out of money.
[...]
