Your co-op, February 2002

New improved member benefits are coming soon!

Members spoke, PCC listened, so, beginning in March, you’ll have new and improved member benefits, whether you just joined PCC or have been shopping here for years.
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Old Ravenna store will become Third Place Books and Honey Bear Bakery

The co-op has entered into an agreement to sell its property at the corner of N.E. 65th St. and 20th Ave. N.E. to Third Place Company, the parent of Third Place Books and the Honey Bear Bakery.

As soon as possible, Third Place Co. (founded by Ron Sher) plans to open a Ravenna neighborhood Third Place complete with books, a Honey Bear Bakery and a community gathering space.

Robert Sindelar, General Manager of Third Place Co., is “tremendously excited to bring some of the best elements of our Lake Forest Park store and integrate them in a new way in a location that has already been such an important destination in the Ravenna neighborhood.”

Members are telling us:

Wow, this is good news — tremendous! I shall be looking forward to it, and taking my pleasure there every other day, for sure!

This is good news! Not as good as a mini-grocery store, but an excellent second best option. Thank you for listening to the community members and PCC members.

Thank you for listening to us and making this wonderful transition to something really valuable and desired — it is a perfect fit for us!

Thank you for the work and support of the community in this difficult process. I think this outcome will be an asset for the neighborhood although nothing will ever replace PCC on the corner.

I am so proud of the leadership of the PCC to make this decision. Thank you from a community member and PCC member. I will continue to support View Ridge and other PCC’s consciously and vigorously. This has been a great start to the New Year — thank you PCC. And it is great to get some capital back into the system. Bravo, thanks for listening.

At noon on January 3, the announcement of the sale of the Ravenna store to Third Place Books and Honey Bear Bakery was emailed and mailed to a long list of Ravenna neighbors and shoppers. Within minutes, emails and calls from members excited about the news began coming in to both the PCC office and to Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park.

The events leading up to this decision began almost a year ago with the closure of the Ravenna store due to sagging sales. Members in that neighborhood who relied on the store were understandably upset at the closure and also complained about what felt like an abrupt process. The board and management undertook a series of community meetings and meetings with smaller groups of members so it could both reach an outcome that would work for the membership and respond to the feelings of loss experienced in the neighborhood.

For months, PCC staff solicited and reviewed proposals for the site, working with the needs expressed by members and neighbors as well as the co-op’s economic requirements. Culled from dozens of potential use proposals, the board heard presentations by the few that made it through this process. Each of those proposals was presented to members and neighbors that attended a community meeting in October.

Third Place/Honey Bear was one of those proposals, and it was clearly the favorite of those present at the meeting. This was borne out by input received by the board and management over the next few weeks as the board prepared to make its selection. It opted to instruct management to negotiate for Third Place/Honey Bear at the site.

PCC thanks everyone — members, board and staff — for their energy, enthusiasm and patience during this process. Let’s all welcome Third Place Books and Honey Bear Bakery to the neighborhood!

PCC now owns Seward Park store property

On a related note, in early January PCC completed the purchase of the real estate our Seward Park store is located on after being approached last fall by the owners about their plans to put the parcel on the market. The owners, all from the same family, had owned the site since they built the store in the early fifties, and now the family felt they needed to pass it on.

The primary family representative is Mrs. Agnes Griffin, who has been a PCC-supportive landlord through some of the difficult early years our store endured there, especially when our lease came up for renewal. Mrs. Griffin showed her extraordinary graciousness again by offering PCC the opportunity to purchase the land and building on what amounted to a right of first refusal basis, even though she had no obligation to do so.

This generosity on her and her family’s part allowed the PCC Board to support a management recommendation to purchase the property. This ensures that our store could continue operating there beyond the expiration of its current lease, which would have expired in 2004. Had another party purchased the building, the store would have faced a high risk of being torn down for more intense development at that time, as the PCC store probably wouldn’t be able to offer a lease rate to compete with an increased intensity use.

On top of her support for PCC’s continued operation in this neighborhood, Mrs. Griffin also chose to make improvements in the building late in 2001 due to some limited damage from the February 2001 earthquake. She is also contributing to the additional improvements that we are undertaking this winter to make the building even more seismically stable as we take ownership of the property. It is an understatement to say not all property owners would participate so generously to public safety standards when there is no legal obligation to do so. PCC is grateful to Mrs. Griffin and her family for the relationship we have had with them since the Seward Park store opened in 1985.

We can now look forward to PCC’s continued presence in the Seward Park neighborhood without the risk of escalating property values jeopardizing our store. The cash purchase of this property is an example of the investment in ongoing stores that is supported by the PCC Board’s decision to liquidate its investment in the former Ravenna store property and re-deploy it in another neighborhood. This reallocation of our scarce capital dollars also occurs via our investments in multi-hundred-thousand-dollar remodels, such as the one begun at our West Seattle store this January.

Voter eligibility

PCC’s annual election will be held May 4 – 19 of this year. Members will elect three people to the Board of Trustees, as well as a Nominating Committee for the coming year. All active members are encouraged to vote!

Your membership is active for purposes of voting if you are on our list of active members as of March 31, 2002. You are eligible to vote if you are at the current level of investment (you’ve paid in $60 on your membership), and have shopped — and had your card scanned — at least once between April 1, 2001, and March 31, 2002. If you have not fully paid the $60 toward your membership, you must have shopped and made a payment toward your membership sometime between December 1, 2001, and March 31, 2002. In this case, the sticker on the back of your card will read March, April, May or June 2002.

If you have any questions about your eligibility to vote in the PCC election, please contact the board administrator at 206-547-1222, or contact our Member Records Department at membership@pccmarkets.com.

No February board meeting

There is no board meeting scheduled for February. The next board meeting will be held Tuesday, March 26, at the PCC Offices, 4201 Roosevelt Way N.E., Seattle. The board meets from 5 p.m. on, for about four hours. Portions of the meeting are in executive (closed) session. Please call the board administrator at 206-547-1222 x126, to learn about the open portions of the meeting. Members can address the board directly at 7 p.m. Please contact PCC prior to the meeting if you want to come and speak.

How to get in touch with us: board@pccmarkets.com .