BETHLEHEM, Pa.- The Bethlehem Co-op Market still isn’t ready to put an official opening date on the calendar for its brick-and-mortar grocery store, but it is celebrating reaching a fundraising milestone.<\/p>\n
The co-op has passed the $600,000 threshold it set for itself to proceed with the next phase of work at\u00a0250 E. Broad St.<\/p>\n
That means refrigeration work is now underway, the co-op wrote, in its March 1 newsletter: “Estimates to complete this phase of work are anywhere between 3-6 weeks. As it continues, our timeline to open will become clearer, so expect the announcement of an opening plan very soon.”<\/p>\n
The $600,000 is part of a larger $1.6 million fundraising goal the co-op has set to open the store and keep it running through its first year.<\/p>\n
Beyond completing the refrigeration work, there are several other items on the to-do list: final inspections and securing the certificate of occupancy; installing the point-of-sale system; ordering and stocking inventory; and hiring and training staff, including a general manager.<\/p>\n
The co-op also noted in its newsletter that it is exploring debt restructuring: “Successful debt restructuring will help to fortify our opening timeline and safeguard financial stability against potential fundraising shortfalls. This is also a critical piece in confirming an opening date.”<\/p>\n
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Ryan Kneller<\/p>\n
Plans for the grocery store were first announced in 2021. Several planned opening days came and went over the years. Recently, the co-op said it would not announce another projected opening date until it’s completely certain it can honor that date.<\/p>\n
Founded in 2011, the 1,700+ member Bethlehem Co-op has received at least $3 million in taxpayer dollars to support the new store. It was awarded a $2.9 million federal reimbursement grant in 2021, and a $100,000 state grant in 2022.<\/p>\n
Once the grocery store is open, anyone can shop there, and not just co-op members. A lifetime membership costs $300.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa.- The Bethlehem Co-op Market still isn’t ready to put an official opening date on the calendar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,8681,155,154,524,59468,59466,146,1724,32053,59467,59469],"class_list":["post-127656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-co-op-market","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-community","tag-debt-restructuring","tag-fundraising-milestone","tag-grant","tag-grocery-store","tag-membership","tag-opening-date","tag-refrigeration-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}