The construction crew is beginning to assemble the roof this morning. All of the exterior walls were secured into place by Friday afternoon. It looks like a building!
Here’s a bird’s eye view of Sharing Spaces Kitchen.
Finally, we can feel what it’s like to be INSIDE Sharing Spaces Kitchen. We had fun visualizing all of the activity we’ve been talking about for the past couple years.
Here’s video from INSIDE the building.
The construction crew had the north wall up by yesterday afternoon. By the time I arrived at work this morning, the east wall was completely up with progress being made on the south and west walls.
I have no words. Just a big smile. Woo! The wall panels are here. The slab of concrete is going to look like a building very, very soon.
I love sourdough bread. Fresh from the oven? Even better!
The Local Oven bakery will be an anchor tenant of Sharing Spaces Kitchen, meaning they will be one of the core businesses that will use the facility – a lot. Tiffany, the bakery manager, has been preparing different recipes for samples using our small break-room kitchen inside the Opportunity Center until she can move into Sharing Spaces Kitchen.
We’ve been graced by a steady stream of muffins, bars, cookies, and cakes – all of them delicious, but it’s the bread that has me really excited. Did I mention it was warm, right out of the oven? 
We can’t wait to launch The Local Oven bakery’s retail location in downtown Prairie du Chien and we can’t wait to help many other food businesses take those first steps.
In the meantime, I think that it’s time for another slice of bread.
There’s been little happening at the construction site in the last couple weeks. We’re waiting for the walls panels to arrive. They are scheduled to be delivered on September 5th. Once they are here and the crew resumes working, the site’s appearance will change dramatically.
In the meantime, we’re still getting ready to launch Opportunity Enterprises’ newest business, The Local Oven. We’re testing recipes and beginning to promote the quality, local ingredients that the bakery will be using. I’ll post much more on that soon as we’re hoping to receive our first samples of local butter and local wheat flour in the coming days.
We’re still expecting the construction to be completed and Sharing Spaces Kitchen to be open for business by late-Fall.
Dennis picking cherry tomatoes at Opportunities Blooming.
Before we began construction of Sharing Spaces Kitchen, we launched our greenhouse business, Opportunities Blooming, over a year ago. While the greenhouse has dealt primarily with flowers, we decided to begin growing some food crops that will be sold to area schools, restaurants, and institutions through our partners at Grown Locally, a producer/buyer cooperative based out of Decorah.
Our first major crop is cherry tomatoes. Today is the first day of major picking and our greenhouse staff is hard at work this morning. We’ll be adding more produce to our growing plan for next year and are considering some options for some things for this fall, yet.
Meanwhile, just a few feet away sits the future site of Sharing Spaces Kitchen, currently under construction. Check out the video below to see our cherry tomato picking as well as the most recent footage of the construction site!
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The construction site now features plumbing, some poured concrete for the walk-in cooler/freezer, as well as the in-floor heating system for the storage area.
Things are moving along fairly steadily for the construction of Sharing Spaces Kitchen. We’re not that far away from walls going up!
Pam standing where the kitchen will be on July 20th.
We were on Norb Aschom’s People, Places, & Things program on Tuesday morning talking about the beginning of construction for Sharing Spaces Kitchen, the new Local Oven Bakery that will operate inside, and the emerging network of facilities that will help scale-up local food production in southwest Wisconsin and northeast Iowa.
Listen to the full interview by clicking the play button below.
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Also, here’s the construction site as it looked yesterday afternoon.
July 13th at the construction site.
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Bio: With a background in communication, marketing, and management, Dan Moris currently serves at the Director of the soon-to-be built Sharing Spaces Kitchen. With an interest in community development, creation of a sustainable local foods network, and serving the needs of clients at the Opportunity Center, Dan seeks to enhance the lives and boost the local economy of southwest Wisconsin.
