Reader Soapbox: Hub City Co-op Ownership Meeting

Soapbox contributor: Lydia Anthony
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Last night was the first ownership meeting of the Hub-City Co-op, and as
a proud member of the vanguard of co-op owners, I can hardly wait to
tell you all about it. But before I launch into the details of the
meeting, you should probably brush up on the Hub City Co-op with these
two articles here and here.

You may also want to read my extended description of the Co-op and why
I became an owner in the original blog post from which this soapbox is
excerpted.

The Meeting

Although there was a little confusion as to the exact start time of
the meeting (6:30), the Barrett room at the library was pretty much
full. There were somewhere between 30 and 40 owners present and a
handful of non-owners. Highlights of the agenda include a financial
status review, owner count (113 owners as of the beginning of the
meeting), discussion of an upcoming fundraiser, and discussion and
vote on a new possible location.

The new possible location was by far the most exciting news to report.
You know where Kimbrell’s Furniture Store used to be, next to Monsoon,
right across from Morgan Square? That’s the one. I thought that the
empty space in the Hub-Bub building was a great spot (though the rent
was ridiculous) but this spot beats that one all over the place. First
of all, it’s RIGHT DOWNTOWN. You can’t get any more downtown than
Morgan Square. Think of the visibility, the foot traffic. Secondly,
the Hub-Bub building was pretty much an empty shell. They were going
to have to upfit it with plumbing, electricity, lighting, everything.
The estimated upfitting costs were $300,000. That’s right, a third of
a million dollars just to get the space usable and that’s not even
talking about inventory, rent, utilities, etc. The Kimbrell building,
on the other hand, had been fully operational as a furniture store. A
large part of the upfitting would be cosmetic. They had estimated
upfitting to be around $75,000, but then admitted that the estimate
was probably on the underside. So let’s, for the heck of it, double
the upfitting cost and say $150,000 (that’s being overly generous)
Still half the cost of renovating the Hub-Bub building.

Next, there’s the matter of square footage. The Hub-Bub space had
6,000. Big enough, sure. The Kimbrell building has up to 28,000 sq.
feet of available space, and the Co-op wouldn’t have to take it all.
That’s the main floor, a full basement, and an upper “mezzanine” that
would be used for administrative offices. Not to mention it’s a
beautiful early 20th century building with lots of character. The
details of the lease offer are confidential, but let me just say that
the offer is, as the phrase went in the meeting, “aggressively
competitive.”

The owner was there too, Wesley Hammond. I like him. Unlike most of
the other downtown property owners, who apparently would rather let
their storefronts sit there and rot than open them up to anyone with
less than ten thousand dollars to wave in their face, he has been
letting community groups use the space while it is in between tenants
- for example, Hub-Bub’s Bring Your Own Art sale this past December.
Actually, that’s how he got hooked up with the Co-op. They had a booth
during the event and he approached them with his wife saying something
like “Would you be interested in this space?” See, if he hadn’t been
putting the building to good use, this beautiful connection never
would have happened. Assuming this story has a happy ending, I hope
the rest of downtown’s property owners are taking notes.

We voted on moving forward with the new space. You would think, from
my description at least, that this would be a no-brainer. But there
was a lot of debate. It centered, mostly, around three concerns. One
was parking. During the lunch and dinner rush, it can be pretty tough
to find a spot on Main Street. There are a few spaces on the Broad
Street entrance. And people were concerned about having to walk any
further than that, for example to the city parking lot on Broad
Street, or the parking garage on the other side of Morgan Square. In
answer, one owner who had lived in an urban area testified to the
feasibility of walking a little ways to the grocery store, especially
if armed with one of those collapsible shopping buggies that could be
sold at the store itself. Others described the loading dock in the
back and how volunteers, perhaps even fundraising groups from schools,
could offer assistance with groceries, similar to traditional grocers
like Publix. And Ashley, the founder, has been watching the traffic
flow on Morgan Square and came to the conclusion that parking was not
so bad from 8:00 to 11:30 and 2:00 to 5:00.

Most of those who were hesitant about the new space just wanted to see
more numbers, more facts. Especially about the true cost of
upfitting, since that figure seemed a little weak. That is perfectly
reasonable of them. But nobody is committing just yet. A lot of owners
have to sign on, a lot of funds have to be raised in the next ninety
day period, before the lease can be signed. In the meantime, Ashley is
crunching the numbers and hashing out the business plan and will be
doing her best to provide all the information she can.

Another concern, or perhaps alternative, brought up, was the concept
of “starting small.” We all love going in with a bang, but often it is
more sustainable to start up a business in a small location with lower
overhead, and growing steadily from there. I am all for this and think
many an endeavor in Spartanburg has suffered “blow-out” by launching
on too grand a scale.

But in all honesty, the Kimbrell building is being offered for the
same price as many smaller buildings in less-desirable locations.
Ashley has been doing the research for months, trying to find the
perfect spot, and could continue to search for years before picking. A
man in the back row made this point very clearly. But since we all
want to see it actually get off the ground, it behooves us to move
forward with the best thing we’ve got going, and focus our hard work
and energy on getting owners, educating the community, and actually
bringing the store to fruition.

There were two votes; the first in favor of sticking with the Hub-Bub
building (no takers) the second, for moving forward with the Kimbrell
building. It seemed that most of the good handful who abstained from
voting would have liked to see a third vote – in favor of continuing
research on locations, including the Kimbrell building, before moving
forward with any one. But their point was clearly made, even if they
didn’t get to raise their hand. And the majority of voters agreed that
the Kimbrell building was too good an opportunity, with too little to
lose. We will re-evaluate down the road if we have to, but in the
meantime, we’re acting with the image of the Kimbrell building in our
minds.

The deal got even sweeter when we got to the discussion of the
fundraiser. First, the W’s in a nutshell:

What: “Spring for Your Community:” Live music, art auction, used book
drive, silent auction, ownership drive.
Who: Hub City Co-op in partnership with the Spartanburg Charter School.
When: Saturday, March 27, from 12 to 8pm
Where: 127 W Main, St., Spartanburg (i.e., the Kimbrell Furniture Building)

Wesley Hammond has been gracious enough to allow us to use the
building for fundraising/marketing purposes. Even before making any
official commitments. He wants the Co-op to happen as much as we do,
and furthermore, he wants it to happen in his space. Is he awesome or
what?

To conclude, the Co-op’s new timeline is in two phases. The first is
90 days of marketing, fundraising, and serious ownership drives.
Pending our target figures are reached, the next phase is moving into
the space, upfitting it, stocking, hiring, etc, getting it ready for
the grand opening in August. If the target figures are not reached, we
will go from there and figure out the next move, but there are at
least 113 of us who are prepared to teach Spartanburg the meaning of
perserverance.

The meeting came to a close with some discussion about pulling the
March 27th event together, and stressing the need to get the word out
to everybody and their dog. Ashley has been giving talks to groups all
around Spartanburg. We talked about tapping the colleges. There are
some documentary showings in the works. We’re getting a few ads out
in, I think, Choice Magazine, as well as a healthy living directory,
and some other places.

That’s about all I have. Any owners out there, feel free to point out
anything I missed.

As for the rest of you, what would it take to turn you from onlooker
to owner? Please let me know by leaving a comment! Perhaps we can
persuade you yet.

Visit the Hub City Co-op website.