The owner of The Italian Centre Shop said she has paid "way too much" to buy The Piazza property in Little Italy from a real estate cooperative that she helped create and lead.
Teresa Spinelli told Taproot that the McCauley Development Cooperative, which she helped set up in 2019, struggled to make the commercial strip mall near her grocery store simultaneously aligned with local values but also profitable, placing it in a dilemma. "If we (the cooperative) sold it to an absentee landlord that lived in a different part of the country, or something, they could put X-rated video places in there, and we'd have no control," Spinelli said. "I paid over and above the selling price — I'm not lying. I swear to God, nobody would do that. It was just not a good business decision, but unfortunately, my love for the community and our neighbours is very important to me. I didn't want (investors) to lose money."
Spinelli fixed her concern by purchasing the property outright for an undisclosed amount. The transaction closed on Oct. 31.
In 2019, Spinelli and several other members of the business community in Little Italy formed the McCauley Development Cooperative to purchase The Piazza for what was reported to be close to $2.9 million. Members of the development corporation believed the then-tenants at The Piazza played host to illegal activities that hurt the neighbourhood's perceived safety and vibrancy. So, with $1.1 million invested by community members in less than a month, and a loan from the Social Enterprise Fund, the development corporation completed the transaction in January 2020.
That followed a long effort to push change using other means. "We reached out to police, we reached out to (Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis), we reached out to see if we could pull their licence," Spinelli said. "We looked at many, many different things, and really nothing was happening, and it was becoming worse and worse and worse. So, the community got together and decided to try this."
But just two months after the sale went through, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. While the development cooperative had hoped the existing tenants at The Piazza would leave and be replaced by others, they instead left without new ones filling their place.
"As much as we didn't want some of those businesses in The Piazza, we didn't want them to (vacate) that quickly," Spinelli said. "COVID lasted for a long time, and we couldn't get anybody to rent those places, so that was definitely a big challenge."
After further expenses for the building, such as roof repairs, Spinelli said the MDC was on the brink of receivership. And even if the cooperative sold The Piazza at the price it purchased it for, she said, investors would not recoup their original investment.
Spinelli, whose father Franco Spinelli opened a small store in 1959 that evolved into The Italian Centre, has made regular investments in Little Italy. In 2024, Concordia University of Edmonton gave her an honorary degree for her contributions to the Avenue of Nations business revitalization zone, the Boyle Renaissance Advisory Committee, and Giovanni Caboto Park. Spinelli also completed the donation of her family home to the Alberta Lung Association, steps from The Italian Centre, in 2024.
Teresa Spinelli, the president of The Italian Centre Shop, just bought The Piazza commercial development from a cooperative she helped found. (Colin Gallant)
Spinelli took over her family's business in 2000 and has expanded it to four more locations, spread across Edmonton, Sherwood Park, and Calgary. In 2024, she told Taproot about her ambitions to expand further in Calgary, and to add stores British Columbia and Saskatchewan. Those, she said, have yet to be realized.
"We'll continue to look and keep our fingers crossed," Spinelli said. "If it was meant to be, it'll happen."
Tenants at The Piazza have shifted toward those with values closer to what the development cooperative envisioned back in 2019.
The newest is Earth's Refillery Coop, an offshoot of the beleaguered Earth's General Store that uses the cooperative business model. The shop sells bulk products meant for reusable containers, in order to mitigate waste from packaging, and offers a café, too.
That shop joins Paper Birch Books, which holds readings by local authors; True Blue Barber Shop, a gender- and sexuality-inclusive barbershop; Culina's commercial kitchen, which offers occasional pop-ups and is teasing a pizzeria expansion; and the Boyle McCauley Denture Clinic, which, as its name suggests, offers dentures.
Just one storefront is up for lease: The former home of the crafty collective of businesses called Makers Hive, which closed in January.