Our Story

"A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm." ~ Henrik Ibsen

This was an idea that started in April of 2006 when some neighbors heard from the owner, Dan Zeigler that their partner/GM had left the GreenStone Floral business and he was looking for a new tenant. The only possible path seemed to be an effort to create a new co-op at the existing location. We sought advice and council from Antonio Rosell and Angela Dawson on how to start a coop for the community.

In July 2006, the CARAG neighborhood's Livability Committee donated $4,000 towards a feasibility study, business plan and membership development plan. Everyone involved was so thankful to CARAG for "stepping up to the plate". We started soliciting Founding Memberships in August.

We conducted two visioning sessions in August and we had about 40 people from the community participate. Download the large (1.2 MB) PDF of all the comments from each breakout group, or a final visioning sessions report. We continue to welcome more community input and we have created a PDF questionnaire you can download.

In August, we had our first big break when we received $15,000 of in-kind donations for the creative branding for a logo and name from StoneArch Creative and this website from fivefivefour, LLC.

We could have organized as regular business, but all of the core organizers had "day jobs" and the level of time and energy was beyond our collective reach. We felt that organizing as a cooperative was something we could all get behind and we could recruit members rather than a few equity partners. We sought a better way of doing local business.

On January 15th, 2007 at the Co-op Membership Meeting, a Board of Directors was elected.