How soon could new grocery store open on city’s west side?

The Gem City Market is planned for the lower Salem Avenue corridor. CORNELIUS FROLIK / STAFF

The Gem City Market is planned for the lower Salem Avenue corridor. CORNELIUS FROLIK / STAFF

The group behind a full-service grocery store planned for the lower Salem Avenue corridor hopes to open the market in 2019.

The Gem City Market will be a food cooperative that is community owned and operated and that is open to everyone, said Daniel Thomas, a member of the Greater Dayton Union Co-op Initiative, which is behind the project.

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The co-op initiative has a goal to sell 2,000 community shares of the market before it can open its doors. The group wants to raise $2.5 million in capital to begin construction on the market, according to the group’s project timeline.

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The initiative last year completed a feasibility study that showed there was a demand and need for a market in the northwestern part of the city.

The group wants to finish its business plan in early 2017 and incorporate the grocery store under Ohio’s cooperative law, according to the timeline.

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