**Long-anticipated Urban Greens fresh produce grocery prepares for early June soft opening in Old Ottawa East**

LORNE ABUGOV

The ‘Coming Soon’ sign for an Urban Greens fruit and vegetable grocery store has been displayed in the plate glass storefront windows of a commercial unit at the Shops at the Milieu at 175 Main Street for a considerable amount of time, prompting a great deal of curiousity, speculation and anticipation from a great many people in the community, including the staff of The Mainstreeter.

Armed with many questions and very few answers about Urban Greens, we went looking for any information that could plug the knowledge gap regarding this potentially important new addition to the Old Ottawa East business community – and this week we finally hit the motherlode. After some digging, we found a source who had an answer for every one of our questions, the owner of Urban Greens, Ottawa businessman Mustafa Elevli.

In a telephone interview with The Mainstreeter, Elevli elaborated on what he termed his ”dream and vision” to open a vibrant fresh fruit and vegetable produce market modelled around a compact version of Ottawa’s two-store Produce Depot chain. “Urban Greens will focus on fruits and vegetables, about 75% of our stock, as well as dry goods and dairy making another 20%, with the balance being drinks, pastas, some pre-packaged meats, as well as “grab and go” type sandwiches, equivalent to what De Rienzo’s sells, very competitively-priced because of all the university and high school students in the community looking for affordable prices,” he explained.

According to Elevli, who will be retiring from his 30-year career at OC Transpo to take the helm of Urban Greens alongside his wife, the couple are new to the grocery business but they have amassed significant retail business experience as owners of several stores in both the St. Laurent Shopping Centre and the Rideau Centre, including a smoke shop and a hair salon.

While the Urban Greens project has experienced some delays to date, work on fitting up the 2,000 square foot grocery has taken on an accelerated pace with extensive shelving and food display freezers having recently arrived on site. “We are planning on a soft opening for Urban Greens at the start of June and we will officially open a few days after, once all of our equipment has arrived,” said Elevli. “We are going to provide a very customer-focused, hands-on management that is really going to please shoppers in this community.”

The current plan is to operate Urban Greens seven days a week with hours of operation between 9am to 9pm, with perhaps an earlier close on Sundays. As for staffing, Elevli foresees hiring between eight to 10 full-time and part-time employees. “We’ll certainly look at hiring local students to give them a first opportunity at employment,” he says.

“My intention is to focus my time on the store’s operations, on customer satisfaction, and on solving problems that may arise. I want to aim for a one-on-one kind of service orientation, a very hands-on kind of approach, especially for the initial few years of our operation.”

“We will be successful if we please customers and please the community. I want my staff to be upfront and transparent. I want to offer variety in terms of the products we stock, and I want feedback from our customers. If there are items that aren’t being stocked, and that are desirable for our customers, we hope they’ll let us know and we will try to add them in,” says Elevli.

When asked why he chose Old Ottawa East as a site for his new store, Elevli explained that “…I know Ottawa really well from my days at OC Transpo. I know that the neighborhood is really developing quickly and well with a lot of condos and apartment buildings. I recognize that there are many students and a number of elderly people residing in Old Ottawa East. Many of them do not have cars. They want an option to obtain food and vegetables, fruit and vegetables at locations that are close by, within walking distance. And I also understand there’s a Farmers Market, right outside my store, which I embrace. I do not see that as a threat to our business whatsoever. I welcome and enjoy competition, and I think our prices and variety will make us very attractive to shoppers.”

“People who come to shop at the Farmers Market on the weekends during the summer will see our store, maybe for the first time, which again is good promotion, good marketing and good exposure for Urban Greens. And you know, we’re not really competing with the Loblaws store at Pretoria Bridge. We’re nothing like Loblaws.”

As for his future as an Old Ottawa East businessman, Elevli is excited to be part of the community and to work together with existing businesses. “I think that the businesses nearby are all helping to feed one another and complementing each other. There are very strong established stores already nearby Urban Greens, such as Tartelette Bakery and The Green Door, that have excellent and loyal customers. I think that’s a very good sign for the community, because the more people that come out to shop and dine locally on Main Street, the better, the more exposure we can get. And over time, we will drive business to them as well,” he concludes.