Vital Statistics
Original Square Footage: 11,000 square feet
New Square Footage: 29,000 square feet
Renovation/Expansion Completed: November 2004
Current Members: 3,200
People’s Food Cooperative of La Crosse, Wisconsin previously leased their store space and had offices in house on adjacent property they had purchased several years ago. With the expansion project, they purchased the store property and expanded over onto their office location after razing the existing house. The expansion included the addition of their own “Hackberry’s Restaurant”, named for the hackberry trees growing in the municipal park across the street. The project was completed in November 2004.
“We took a long time to plan and execute the project,” says General Manager Michelle Schry. At the time she was hired in 2001, the board was talking about the need to grow. “We had a lot of things to do regarding our internal readiness before taking a big leap to building a new store,” she says, “and we used CDS food consultants for a lot of different things.”
Using the CDS Toolbox for expansion and relocation, they were able to come up with a plan to ensure they had their “ducks in a row”. They brought in CDS project manager Denise Chevalier early in the process to help with various general contracting issues so they would better understand who they were working with. “She and the other CDS consultants were wonderful partners in this project,” Schry says. “They acted as partners rather than folks who come in, do a job and leave. They had an ongoing interest in making sure things were going well.”
Following the actual construction, they relied on another CDS consultant to work with the management team to ensure they were on track with managing their margins. “We knew this was an issue with other co-op expansions,” explains Schry. “We tried to use that knowledge base CDS has to head off potential problems wherever we could.”
Through their efforts and successful expansion, membership has grown in five years from 1,400 to 3,200. The expansion of its retail space and the addition of the new restaurant increased overall sales by approximately 42% with the first two years of operation.
“La Crosse has a population of approximately 50,000 people,” Schry notes, “and we feel pretty comfortable with the level of membership growth we’ve had. From the time we publicly started talking about doing this project, we increased membership by 1,000.”
CDS Food Cooperative Project Consultants
Denise Chevalier – Project Management
Bill Gessner – Lead Consultant, feasibility study, project management support
Pete Davis – Market analysis, site location
Marilyn Scholl – Policy governance board training
Mel Braverman – Operational and financial improvement
