Proposed Dayton grocery co-op gets quick start toward its goal

its goal even though shares only went on sale last week.

“We had a bunch right off the bat, and since then, we’ve been getting five to 10 (purchased) a day,” said Lela Klein, executive director of the Greater Dayton Union Co-op Initiative, which is behind the market project. “I think it shows that people in this community are really getting on board and really supportive of this idea.”

The proposed Gem City Market will be constructed on a grassy lot on Salem Avenue just north of Holt Street.

Building, stocking and opening the market is expected to cost about $3.9 million. The grocery store will have a roughly 15,000-square-foot footprint, with about 10,000 square feet of selling space.

The co-op initiative last week kicked off a share drive, with the goal of selling 2,000, which would demonstrate that the community is behind the project, Klein said.

Also, she said, 2,000 people is about 9 percent of the market trade area, which is roughly the amount of loyal customers needed to make the market successful.

Citizens do not have to live in the trade area to buy shares.

The grocery store trade area contains about 22,000 residents who spend more than $3 million per month on groceries, according

People who live MIAMI TWP. —

or drive near Miami Twp.’s — — Layer Park should be prepared for disruption in that neighborhood in the weeks ahead.

More than 6,000 tons of lead-contaminated soil at the park is expected to be removed in the coming weeks as part $3 million U.S. EPA cleanup.

“There will be some heavy truck traffic,” said Tricia Edwards, federal Environmental Protection Agency on scene coordinator for its Superfund Division.

Early last year the Ohio EPA detected high concentrations of lead in the soil of the 7.5-acre park on Cordell Drive. The agency said then that their staff had found high readings at the park in 2013 as well, but had overlooked them in what an OEPA official said was a “big mistake.”

“We will be doing perimeter monitoring to ensure there aren’t any dust concerns or anything leaving the site,” she added. “But the biggest thing in the neighboring area will be the truck traffic.”

The number of dump trucks traveling through the residential neighborhood near the Ohio 741 and Alex-Bell Road intersection will depend on their load capacity – they could be 20 foot or larger, Edwards said.

The site is a former skeet shooting range, and the lead contamination is from the years of buckshot