LEGACY AT WORK SALE OF MIFFLIN STREET CO-OP STORE BENEFITS NEW OWNER AND CO-OP.(LOCAL)

Byline: BARRY ADAMS badams@madison.com 608-252-6148

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CORRECTION: A story on Page 1 of Friday's Local section should have said that the building that formerly housed the Mifflin Street Co-op and is now home to ABC for Health is at the corner of West Mifflin and North Bassett streets.

(correction published 10-20-07)

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The bulk grains, organic vegetables and soy milk have been absent from 32 N. Bassett St. for almost a year.

But the legacy of the Mifflin Street Co-op is helping the new tenant and likely will aid other community organizations in years to come.

The co-op's grocery store, founded in 1968, closed in December after almost 10 years without a profitable quarter and thousands of dollars of debt owed to the Internal Revenue Service.

In June, the co-op sold the two-story building at East Mifflin and North Bassett streets to ABC for Health, a nonprofit, public interest law firm dedicated to linking children and families to health-care benefits and services.

The $475,000 sale has allowed the co-op to pay off its $36,000 tax bill and reorganize. While it's unlikely a grocery will be in its future, the co-op, run by a nine-person board, is now a community investment organization.

"They've reorganized the co-op to shepherd the funds and are working to devise a system to use those funds for community projects," said the co-op's attorney, Scott Herrick, who calls the sale of the building to ABC for Health the co-op's first community project since the store's closing.

"The transaction was satisfying in that the co-op received fair economic value in the transaction, was able to support a good, valuable organization and that organization got a good building and paid an appropriate price," Herrick said.

Since ABC for Health bought the building in June, the 14-year-old statewide organization that had been housed at East Johnson and State streets, has spent about $75,000 to remodel the former grocery and the upstairs apartment into office space.

The former checkout area at the front the building is now a conference room, while the main grocery area was turned into offices. A former storage room in the back is a studio where training sessions streamed over the Internet are recorded and viewed by health-care industry professionals statewide.

The organization employs 18 people, with 12 of them law and undergraduate students, many of them who live in the immediate area.

"We're really pleased with the space and the location," said Bobby Peterson, ABC's founder and executive director. "The building has made the transition nicely from a grocery store to a public interest law firm."

It's not unusual for someone to stop by the office looking for groceries. The front awning still advertises groceries and the 28-foot high, 65-foot long mural showing the politics of food remains on the north side of the building.

Hidden inside the building are several other reminders of the buildings political past, which Peterson wants to preserve.

On a white interior brick wall in the back of the building, "Food for the Revolution" remains painted in red, although part of it was cut away for the installation of a doorway. Upstairs, old posters remain taped to the wall.

One of them pictures former Madison state Rep. David Clarenbach with the Rev. Jessie Jackson. Clarenbach served as the Democratic Assemblyman from the 78th District on Madison's East Side from 1975 to 1993.

The poster, likely from the late 1980s, calls for the boycott of Klein-Dickert's paint division, which went on strike in 1986. Employees of the Madison company later voted to decertify the union but the boycott continued.

"It's a landmark," Peterson said of the building which housed a grocery for more than 100 years. "It works really well for us."

CAPTION(S):

Photos by ANDY MANIS For the State Journal

Diane Vang, an administrative assistant with ABC For Health, a public

interest law firm that connects families with health care, works in the former

Mifflin Street Co-op. ABC for Health purchased the former grocery in June, and

the sale allowed the co-op to pay its tax bills and reorganize into a

community investment organization.

Brynne McBride and Bobby Peterson are attorneys at ABC For Health, which is

run out of the former home of the Mifflin Street Co-op.