Business was a big topic at Monday night’s North Delridge Neighborhood Council meeting – local businesses present and potentially future. Read on for our toplines:

BUSINESS, PRESENT: A business association is being organized for the main retail area in North Delridge, known in the Neighborhood Plan as the “Brandon Node” (since it’s centered around Delridge/Brandon). It’s an outgrowth of the “visioning” meeting held for the area in February, with businesses, residents, and City Councilmembers participating (read about it on the NDNC site).

BUSINESS, FUTURE: Much of the meeting focused on the business that is considered the frontrunner for the commercial space that DESC has promised to build on the northwest side of the ground level of its 66-apartment Delridge Supportive Housing building (5444 Delridge Way SW). That’s the Delridge Produce Cooperative, which has tested various types of operations over the past few years such as a buyers’ club and mobile market. DESC has said it would like to settle on its business tenant sooner rather than later, to incorporate the space’s needs into the planning process, and the issue now is community support for the “greengrocer”-type operation DPC envisions.

From the Delridge Alliance, working with the Community Advisory Committee for the DESC project, Vonetta Mangaoang suggested it might be good for the DPC to have benchmarks and dates set for coming up with capitalization, pricing, product lists, etc. Her concern is to help position the DPC for success, because it wouldn’t be in anyone’s best interest for the operation to fail, leaving that space empty. But, the question kept arising, is it up to the NDNC/area residents to do anything beyond endorse the idea of a market – which has long ranked high on area wish lists – and leave it up to DESC/DPC/whomever to take it from there? DPC board member Ariana Rose Taylor-Stanley was at the NDNC meeting and said it is important for them to know where they stand with the neighborhood, and she invited the public to the cooperative’s next public meeting next Monday (here’s the DPC calendar). In the meantime, the DESC project’s Advisory Committee has its next meeting this week, 6:30 pm Thursday at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center.

PARKS AND GREEN SPACES LEVY OPPORTUNITY FUND: The city is embarking on the second round of seeking applications for a share of the money available for community-generated projects. As mentioned here last month, workshops are coming up to help would-be applicants put together proposal letters and then applications (here’s the schedule). Community discussion is expected shortly, to elicit potential proposals for discussion; one of the possibilities mentioned last night included enhancements in the Delridge Skatepark area of the Delridge Community Center complex.

NORTH DELRIDGE SPRING CLEAN: This Saturday morning, 10 am-noon (here’s the reminder we published last weekend).

The North Delridge Neighborhood Council meets on second Mondays, 6:30 pm, Delridge Library, with lots of information online at ndnc.org.