Meeting Tonight To Mull Prospects For A Market at Daughtrey's

The Daughtrey Building has been empty for years and is now owned by Alameda County.

Tonight a group of Castro Valley residents will meet there to discuss a plan to turn that vacant space into a cooperative market.

The meeting will begin at 5 pm, according to a Facebook page that is the public focal point those interested in the effort.

Organizers expect that the meeting will be attended by Bill Lambert, assistant director of economic development for Alameda County.

The county currently owns the site and Lambert will be on hand to answer questions or suggest avenues for future research.

Organizers held a preliminary meeting Saturday. Michael Joseph Kusiak, who maintains the group's Facebook page, summarized the discussion thus far. Highlights include:

• Work with local members of the "Cottage Food" community to develop a "pop-up" market to develop potential vendors, create overall community enthusiasm for something more permanent and perhaps serve as a mechanism to sell shares in a Community Store. 
• Questions to answer include whether the store would simply be a venue with independent vendors or "buy" its own inventory; could it combine food and well as non-food products? But the immediate emphasis seems to be on food.
• There was some talk about building a commercial kitchen to support vendors and raise revenue for the store as a whole.

Read the full summary and get into the discussion by joining the Facebook group: Castro Valley Community Store (apply for membership).

Read more about the Daughtrey building and efforts to repurpose it here.