Nexus Community Partners’ Shared Ownership Center awards $125,000 to South Como Cooperative
SAINT PAUL, MN—Today, the Shared Ownership Center at Nexus announces its first LOCAL Fund: Community Ownership grant of $125,000, awarded to South Como Community Investment Cooperative (SCC) for the acquisition of 978 Front Avenue. The LOCAL Fund: Community Ownership is a grant program in partnership with the City of Saint Paul’s Office of Financial Empowerment.
The grant supports the acquisition costs of SCC’s first property, a mixed-use building with two occupied residential units and vacant commercial space for South Como’s neighborhood businesses. SCC closed on the property in November 2025.
The award represents the deep investment the City of Saint Paul is making in community-owned real estate, local businesses and jobs. In addition to their grant award, SCC receives free technical assistance from the Shared Ownership Center to support their continued development.
SCC joins a growing movement of real estate cooperatives in the Twin Cities. This continues to place the Twin Cities metropolitan area at the forefront of the community ownership movement with the most operational real estate co-ops in the nation.
Across the country, there is mounting resistance to the extractive nature of real estate speculation, where rents and resale profits are sent to distant corporations that have no consideration of local needs. People see community ownership as an antidote, allowing them to collectively prioritize local businesses and interests, and to keep the economic benefits of real estate circulating locally.
The Shared Ownership Center led an outreach campaign, hosted a technical assistance workshop series, toured potential building sites, and continues to support Saint Paul real estate investment co-ops and other community ownership entities with acquiring LOCAL Fund eligible properties.
South Como Co-op Board’s President Jessica Willman and Secretary Matt Schneider shared that their cooperative is “passionate about investing in our own community…with the LOCAL Fund grant, we were able to keep this property accessible and affordable for our current residents and future commercial tenants. We can profit together as we improve our neighborhood one investment at a time. The expertise and financial assistance made available by Nexus Community Partners and the LOCAL Fund have made navigating the process of acquiring our first property possible.”
Comprised of two programs, the LOCAL Fund leverages $2.5 million dedicated to supporting worker-owned cooperatives and community ownership entities in Saint Paul. The LOCAL Fund: Community Ownership supports community ownership entities, like real estate investment cooperatives, with grants and technical assistance for predevelopment, acquisition, demolition, and rehabilitation of commercial properties. The LOCAL Fund: Worker Ownership offers grants and technical assistance for worker co-op startups, conversions of existing businesses, and existing co-ops. In summer 2025, $420,000 was awarded to four Saint Paul worker-owned cooperatives: Storehouse Grocers and Coffee Co-op, Twin Cities Impact Cooperative, Terra Firma Building and Remodeling Cooperative, and The Improve Group.
This project is being supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number SLFRP1612 awarded to Nexus Community Partners, through the City of Saint Paul, by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
To learn more about the LOCAL Fund: Community Ownership and Worker Ownership grant programs or schedule a consultation with the Shared Ownership Center, visit www.nexuscp.org/shared-ownership-center.
