Go go grocery!!

We're on the internet!!!So we painted and cleansed the co-op grocery building by the 13th Street garden all last week, leading up to the CSA pick-up on Thursday. Documented here by Sean Thomas of the Old North Restoration Group. Woop woop. It was very satisfying to just go in there, get some clutter out, and paint it fun fun fun colors. I hope this leads to more usage of the building. Right now, it is used as the drop-off point for the CSA and some of the vendors for the North City Farmers' Market (which you should go to every Saturday 9-12, they take debit and credit cards as well as EBT cards and vouchers hooray!). It is still a total monster, but it's becoming lovable for strangers, too.
(Isn't it funny that the garden has started and is rocking a booth at the farmers' market while all we've given the building is some paint and reused wood? Either way, the building is on its way!)
many many hugs
Hitomi

Building Profile: Grocery Co Op

The following pictures are from the building we're looking at in Old North. We've been asked to help design a grocery store/ Co-Op for this building. It seems like a really interesting project and I'm excited to take part in it. Right now, theres a bicycle building workshop being run out of the building in conjunction with the Old North Farmer's Market grant. It'll be interesting to see how we incorporate the past and current uses for the building in our attempt at rehabilitation.

The building itself used to be the distribution center for this horseradish company (!!), but that was a few years ago. It's been vacant til the bicycle shop moved there. It's a really big building that has lots and lots of space, but it's kinda dark. There's a cool refrigerator thing inside that really rocks. Ideally, there will be enough room (and there is) for the grocery/co-op and the bicycle shop and perhaps even some other sort of artsy space. There are nice concrete floors throughout the building.

It's maybe not as flashy or outwardly beautiful as some of the other buildings in this hood, but that's part of its appeal for me. It's like taking in that scruffy-looking, not-so-cute dog that follows you home. You know? Except we followed it home. and it's not really scruffy, just... bricky. But you get the pictures.

Hopefully, we can make something useful and awesome.

Hug it out,

Antonio Pacheco