The Common Ground Food Cooperative is ready to grow again.

The store announced at a Monday news conference that it had met its goal to raise at least $650,000 in loans, collected from more than 3,000 owners, which will finance 40 percent of a $1.6 million expansion scheduled to begin this October and finish in April.

General Manager Jacqueline Hannah said the expansion will include space for more fresh produce and selection, more meat and dairy products, organic beer and wine, an espresso bar with free-trade coffee, a full service deli and bakery and classroom space for food education programming.

This will be the second expansion for the cooperative in three years, having moved from the basement of a church, its first physical location since its founding in 1974, to its current location in Lincoln Square Village in 2008. While corporations can sell stock in their company for a share, or dividend, of the company’s profits, cooperatives like Common Ground have the unique ability to accept loans from customers who have paid a one-time $60 fee and become owners.

According to the Common Ground website, the money raised in the owner loan campaign will be used for construction and purchase of equipment. Interest rates will range from 2.5 percent to 5 percent, to be negotiated with the individual owners.

Hannah, hired as Common Ground’s first general manager in 2006, said watching the community raise $270,000 in six weeks to support the first expansion in 2008 inspired and lent her confidence during the current funding campaign.

“(In) watching our community rally together to make the loans to make the cooperative expansion possible, I learned to believe in the power of community, and the unique power of cooperatively owned businesses to make our communities great,” said Hannah, who explained that the current campaign, which began July 3, raised more than $665,000 in loans in 60 days.

Lincoln Square Village General Manager Wade Franklin, who was present during Monday’s news conference, congratulated the store on its expansion.

“We think this will not only be great for Lincoln Square, but also for the city of Urbana in general as well,” Franklin said. “Common Ground has been a great addition to Lincoln Square, and we’re happy and excited to be working with them now and in the future.”

Ben Galewsky, chair of the Common Ground Food Cooperative Board of Directors, joined the co-op as an owner before the store’s move to Lincoln Square and said the cooperative business model can be both monetarily successful and benefit the community.

“Our owners expect tangible social benefits, such as enabling local farmers to make a good living growing food crops, or teaching people the skills to cook healthy meals that cost less than $2 per serving,” Galewsky said. “This is what makes co-op businesses unique and Common Ground an integral part of our community. We are stronger together.”