| What’s
New at the New Store
By Kenna S. Eaton, General Manager, from the June 2005 Newsletter
They say that time flies when you’re having fun and I think
that’s true! The time is flying by and I can hardly believe
that within a few months we will be occupying our new location and
there’s still so much to be done.
During the past month we've finally gotten past
the store layout and into the nitty gritty of planning the infrastructure
that will
support our dreams. This month we created a plumbing plan and got
all the permits and approvals necessary to begin cutting into the
floor. For those of you who’ve never installed plumbing in
an existing store this is the not-so-exciting stage where we cut
into our existing floor to lay drains for all our pieces of refrigeration,
and there are so many off them. However we planned for efficiency
and tried to get as many things as close together as possible to
have as few cuts as possible and it is critical that we do it now
rather than later. Next come the electrical and mechanical plans.
And then finally we can start putting in those things that will make
us look like a “real” store: walls, doors, shelving
and equipment.
The Board has been wrestling with the budget
and has had to devise a process for prioritizing the options
for our new home. We were
in agreement that the basics (floor, lights, air, electrical, etc)
needed to done right but after that some of the decisions got tough.
Our budget of $950,000 is definitely a tight one and does not support
everything we want, so compromises have been negotiated in every
department and we will have a lengthy list of items that we’d
like to purchase in years three, five and ten; like my fancy pants
salad bar that was sadly one of the first things on the list to
be postponed.
Mullin and Associates, the architects, have been
great in trying to facilitate this process to make sure we have
all the information
we need to be able to make decisions. Dan, Kurt, Ron, and Joe have
put a ton of work into getting our project going as fast as possible
so we can achieve my motto “on time and under budget;” only
time will tell if its true! The co-operative process is by nature
a little slow and unwieldy but we’ve worked at being as efficient
as we can be within those constraints.
Finally, please join me on Saturday, June 25th from 10-12 am
for a peek in the front door of our new abode complete with some
refreshments,
a floor plan and my undivided attention. See you then!
|
