ALBANY — A kitchen, and maybe two, are taking shape at the rear of the first floor of a four-story South Pearl Street building that in its 180 years of life has been a Baptist church, synagogue, grocery store, furniture store, hardware store and vertical mall with a warren of small and micro businesses.
The kitchen(s) are for TLC, short for Tea Lemonade Coffee, a cafe and community kitchen owned by Kaciem Swain, an entrepreneur and advocate for community development whose past projects in the South End have included the South End Night Market, Capital Curbside delivery service and AVillage, a grass-roots neighborhood group. Swain also runs Velvet Rope Group, an events and hospitality company that curates everything from speed dating and business-development panels to poetry and music nights.
As Swain envisions TLC, it will be the food component of the business incubator and community and cultural center that is the Capital Region Community Investment Trust, the formal name and identity for the 23,000-square-foot building at 153 S. Pearl St. Engraved in stone above the front door is the word Pommer, the name of the furniture store that opened there in the beginning of the 20th century. The Community Investment Trust hopes the building comes to be known as the Pommer again, though many still call it the Coliseum, the name when it was a mall prior to being purchased in 2022 by the Community Loan Fund, according to CIT’s operations director, Ruth Kassel. A nonprofit formally designated as a community development financial institution, which loans to those who may not qualify for traditional financing, the loan fund is transforming CIT into a wealth-building property in which people may buy ownership shares for between $10 and $100 per month, Kassel said. So far, more than $5 million has been spent on renovations, she said…