ABOUT

OUR MISSION

To build a more empowered community through cooperatively owned places that connect people and actively integrate wellness, arts, family and food.

We are Northern Michigan’s first real estate cooperative!

414 E. Eighth Street is our pilot project - an innovative, mixed-use community center with workforce housing, common areas, and mission-driven organizations serving our community through food, family, arts, and wellness. 414 holds space for building a community that is better, together - one that’s healthy, connected, creative, and inclusive.

Both our building and community ownership are open to all.

BECOME AN OWNER

OUR VALUES

We are a co-op. This means we have a cooperative governance structure that includes stakeholders in decisions that affect them and informs every part of our decision making processes with the values of honesty, openness, social responsibility, and caring for others. We are part of a global community of co-ops standing for democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity.

We create belonging through shared ownership. We, the community, collaboratively inhabit- and own- the Commongrounds building. We are invested in each other’s success as connected to our own. Our interdependence reveals itself through design, play, art, work, food, and a welcoming culture. Every tenant, community member, and visitor imbues the physical space with diversity, inclusion, curiosity, respect, humility, and love.

We communicate openly. Owning the building means we share the fruits of ownership; it also means we share the risks. This requires courageous vulnerability, radical transparency, deep listening, and a commitment to genuinely asking for and offering feedback, so together we can explore opportunities and uncover shared challenges. We know that honest conversations build trust and that sharing truth with stakeholders is the best path forward.

Our multifariousness is our power. Our inclusive structure, our collaborative financing, our collective wisdom, and our can-do attitude combine to serve the needs of our community in ways that none of us could have imagined or brought to light on our own. When all voices are heard, and when everyone has a stake, we are able to envision and manifest astounding things.

What is a co-op?

Cooperatives sell goods, services, or real estate, like other companies, but have a distinct ownership and profit structure. The owners and shareholders of a cooperative are its members, the people who use it. Cooperatives can earn profit, but profit is reinvested in the cooperative or returned to its members in proportion to how much they use the services, goods, or facilities provided by the cooperative.

We are a real estate co-op.

Commongrounds is building real estate owned by its commercial tenants and its community, so that everyone in our region can participate in the ownership of building projects for their mutual benefit. Like other cooperatives, we are owned by the people who use our product -- in our case, our first- and second-floor building tenants, apartment residents, and community patrons.