Urban Greens more than halfway to fundraising goal for West End co-op

THE URBAN GREENS FOOD CO-OP reports that it has passed the halfway point in its fundraising goal for the Providence West End development, which will include the grocery store as well as residential units once it opens. / COURTESY URBAN GREENS
THE URBAN GREENS FOOD CO-OP reports that it has passed the halfway point in its fundraising goal for the Providence West End development, which will include the grocery store as well as residential units once it opens. / COURTESY URBAN GREENS

PROVIDENCE – Through the first two months of its direct public offering, Urban Greens Food Co-op, a community-owned grocery store planned for the West End of Providence, has raised more than half of the equity it needs to ensure the store opens.

Eighty-four individual investors have contributed $338,500 toward the so-called “Community Investment Campaign,” which offers any state resident, including non-accredited investors, the opportunity to invest in the co-op. The campaign offers preferred stock publicly with a minimum return of 2 percent annually. The goal for the campaign is $600,000 and it closes in April 2017.

“This campaign let me make a meaningful investment – an actual capital investment with an actual financial return – but in a local project with core values I believe in and want to support,” said board member and investor Cassie Tharinger in a statement.

The co-op, slated to open at the site of the old Louttit Laundry building at 93 Cranston St., would provide the area with a full-scale grocery store, which Urban Greens says it lacks right now. The member-owned and controlled business will open on the ground floor of a two-building, mixed-use development project, which includes 39 residential units and a ground-floor parking garage totaling about 54,400 square feet.
The $10 million development was awarded $2.7 million in Rebuild Rhode Island tax credits, which comes with the requirement that the project get underway this year. The tax credit funds would be distributed over a five-year period after certificate of occupancy. Urban Greens is projected to open in fall 2017, according to its website.

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The grocery store urges others to participate in the direct public offering, saying it’s a rare opportunity in which individuals can expect a financial return on an investment that goes into the local food economy in a mixed-income area where healthy and locally produced goods are scant.

“We all have the right to fresh, real food,” said Laura Zaglio, an Urban Greens investor, in a statement. “Urban Greens will be a means to provide that to many.”

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