NEON planning to build $20 million community kitchen
Rendering of the NEON food incubation center. Construction is set to begin in the spring of 2024 and will include sitting areas for patrons to enjoy. Courtesy of NEON.
By Elan Coldwater, North News Intern
Northside Economic Opportunity Network (NEON) is raising funds to build a $20 million project for food entrepreneurs that leaders hope to be done by 2025. The organization has already raised $11.5 million dollars with about $8.5 million to go.
The center is designed to support small and recent food entrepreneurs, featuring a 22,000 square foot community kitchen, space for private kitchens, food storage, packaging, and retail space to fully operate a food vendor business.
Stephen Obayuwana, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at NEON, saw a great need from North Minneapolis entrepreneurs, specifically food entrepreneurs, as more than 40 percent of NEON’s clients are in the food industry.
“You cannot prepare for public [food operations] from home. You have to have a place which is a certified commercial kitchen.” Obayuwana said. “And lo and behold, we don’t have anything on the Northside. So, if [NEON is] going to help people be successful in entrepreneurship, you’ve got to give them the tools they need.”
Obayuwana said NEON is raising funds not through a mortgage, but through equity in fundraising from philanthropic foundations, individuals, corporations, and the government which are willing to give NEON money.
“The land we intend to acquire from the city [has] been vacant for 10 years and we think it will bring some livability to the community. It belongs to the community.”
NEON is a nonprofit dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and small business owners create wealth. Staff provide support through loans, coaching, workshops, and meetings that help first time business owners get their businesses running successfully. In 2022, NEON assisted 1,308 businesses.
Bernadette Hunter, owner of Highly
Favored Delicacies, got training from NEON to apply for a Mall of America program for BIPOC entrepreneurs in 2021. She gave written testimony to lawmakers in support of funding the commercial kitchen.
“NEON stepped right in, they knew exactly what I needed and how to accomplish the task,” Hunter said.
NEON gave her a grant to purchase a commercial freezer and guidance to get a vendor's license to operate in the Mall of America where she held a temporary residency for six months in 2021-2022.
“Yes, I'm an entrepreneur and like many others we have great ideas,” Hunter said. “ But NEON was the key. NEON knows what it takes to get you where you need to be legally and in a professional manner.”
Obayuwana said NEON hopes to create a hub that will help revitalize the West Broadway business corridor and help eliminate the food desert that plagues the community.
“The land we intend to acquire from the city [has] been vacant for 10 years and we think it will bring some livability to the community. It belongs to the community,” Obayuwana said.
The incubation space will be located on 2110 West Broadway Ave. N, right next to the Capri Theater. He predicts NEON will break ground in the spring of 2024.