Evergreen Cooperative Laundry

The Evergreen Cooperative Laundry (ECL) formally opened its doors for business on October 21, 2009 in ShoreBank Enterprise Group's Glenville Enterprise Center.

The ECL is the first commercial-scale, industrial, and green laundry in Northeast Ohio. Its initial customer base is made up of healthcare institutions, nursing homes, and hotels, for whom ECL will ultimately clean 12 million pounds of health care bed linen annually. Once fully operational, this employee-owned company will hire 50 low- and moderate-income residents from the neighborhoods of Greater University Circle. Members of the cooperative will make a starting wage approximately 20% higher than employees of other commercial laundries in the region and will have access to a superior benefits package. Business planning also projects that after eight years on the job, an ECL worker-owner will have built up as much as $65,000 of equity in the firm.

To date, the ECL has hired nine employees and is handling linens for some of the area’s major nursing home providers, including McGregor and Judson. Jim Anderson, ECL's CEO, says the company uses less water to clean linens than traditional laundries do, less energy to heat the water in the washers, less energy to heat the air in the dryers, and much less energy in the ironing process. Furthermore laundry facility is housed in GEC's Elk Building and the company is pursuing LEED certification.

Not only is the ECL a tenant of SEC's the Evergreen Cooperative Development Fund (ECDF) was instrumental in putting together the financing package for the ECL, including a loan made by the Fund itself. This loan was leveraged to access additional financing, including two bank loans; a HUD108 loan; and a New Markets Tax Credit allocation.