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The Hubbard County Food Shelf has floorplans in hand for its building campaign. According to Executive Director Bob Hansen, the food shelf board voted on Wednesday, May 20 to move forward
with ICS to develop the facility, based on architectural drawings from Sperides Reiners Architects, Inc. (SRA) of Eden Prairie. ADVERTISEMENT A site plan of the new food shelf location shows
a building located on Commerce Avenue in Park Rapids, across Industrial Park Road from TEAM Industries. It includes a sizable parking area on the south side, a truck lane wrapping around
the east and north sides, a loading bay for trucks, a canopy to shelter deliveries from local grocery stores and a trash enclosure. SRA’s floor plan revision, dated March 20, shows a
building 48 feet wide from north to south, 130 feet long from east to west. The new building will expand the current food shelf’s floor space by about 75%, from about 47,000 square feet to
about 78,000 square feet, Hansen said. Once checked in, customers will enter the shopping area, grab a cart and choose products from cooler doors, freezer doors and supermarket-style
shelves. “This will be client-choice,” said Hansen. “Versus right now, we just have a standard policy: this goes in their basket, and we fill their baskets, and that’s what they get.” The
floor plan also features a large “back of house” area, where semis will unload and volunteers will sort and store incoming products. Frozen and refrigerated products will be loaded into the
back of a large, walk-in cooler and freezer, each with five customer-facing doors at the other end, Hansen explained. In addition, the food shelf’s current, exterior storage cooler will move
to the new site, opening off the interior walk-in cooler on the north side of the building. ADVERTISEMENT Regarding the need to expand, Hansen said the number of clients served by the food
shelf continues to grow. “We don’t see any end in sight for that,” he said. “Over the last five years, we’ve seen it go up by over 149%, and we see that trend continuing, with senior
citizens and disabled people on fixed incomes and the inflation in grocery prices. Our costs are going up. It’s getting more and more critical that we save money where we can.” Hansen said
the new building will be a lot more efficient than the current facility. For example, he said, “Right now, we’re giving them food that some of them don’t use, don’t want and they take it
anyway. We’ve had reports from people who work at the transfer station that they’ve seen food come in that’s just thrown away.” Client choice would stretch food a lot further, he said,
saving money and reducing waste. In addition, Hansen noted, a high volume of donations during the COVID-19 pandemic led the food shelf to stock many items they hadn’t previously offered,
such as personal care items, cake mixes, condiments, flour and sugar, etc. Hansen said they’ve cut back on these items since April, and as a result, their last two orders from the North
Country Food Bank have cost half of what the food shelf had been paying. He acknowledged this also means clients won’t get as much in their baskets, but he added, “We’re supposed to be an
emergency food source, not a monthly food source.” Hansen said there could still be minor changes to the plans. However, the food shelf board, building committee and funding campaign
committee met Wednesday and discussed the plans with ICS Project Development Manager Jason Splett. ADVERTISEMENT Afterward, Hansen said, the board agreed to proceed with ICS for $6,000 to
obtain a construction cost estimate, a project scope schedule, a program management plan and a value management budget. > Right now, the vision’s there, and I truly believe it can happen.
Bob Hansen, executive director, Hubbard County Food Shelf He said Splett hinted the construction cost may end up exceeding the board’s previous estimate of $1.3 million. Meanwhile, they’ve
already sunk $62,000 into the property and have about $320,000 to work with. However, Hansen said the food shelf’s fundraising committee is in the process of interviewing professional
fundraising consultants. “I’m kind of excited about it,” Hansen said about the project. “It looks like a great, big hill to crawl. But we’re really starting to feel like this is going to
materialize. “When we actually get to the point where we can turn some dirt out there, I think everybody will get excited about it. Right now, the vision’s there, and I truly believe it can
happen. This community has been so generous in support of us.” They’ll be asked to dig deep, however. Hansen said, “We’re going to need a lot of help.”