Case Study

Hendersonville community Co-op

Industry

Agricultural, Retail, HVAC

Project Location

Hendersonville, NC

Project Scope

13,900 SF Store, 1,900 SF Office

Cooper Construction built the food store and the office building for the Hendersonville Community Co-op in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

By 2013 the co-op was owned by more than 2,000 family households and had outgrown its leased building on South Grove Street. General manager Damian Tody told the Hendersonville Lightning that the co-op had spent five years working to expand the retail space and improve what it could offer. The replacement store went up across Spartanburg Highway from the old one.

The store is 13,900 square feet. The office building is 1,900 and holds administrative offices and a 50-seat classroom the co-op uses for community classes and workshops. It was constructed to LEED Certified standards, though the co-op chose not to pursue formal certification.

Cooper's HVAC crew has been back to the store repeatedly since. Air curtains went in at the front and rear doors, and in 2023 Cooper built the co-op's training kitchen with a commercial dishwasher, a three compartment sink, prep sinks, a six burner range and a griddle top range, a ten foot hood with fire suppression, and a walk-in cooler with the refrigeration package sized to it.

The new store opened on Earth Day 2015, with an organic Session IPA brewed for the occasion by Southern Appalachian Brewery. The co-op is now owned by close to 5,000 families and individuals.