Keystone Community Services

Our Vision

The Community Food Center will provide a central Keystone hub for community engagement where neighbors can help neighbors and everyone is welcome!

Planning for a Community Food Center

Our plan for a new Community Food Center was born during a community engagement process in 2019 that included input from over 700 community members. Our key takeaway: Ramsey County needs more food resources, and Keystone should expand to provide these resources.

Knowing we need more space to store and distribute food, we began searching for a site. Our community urged us to prioritize these elements:

  • Location in our core service area
  • Easy access by public transit
  • More space for food and community connection, and room to grow

We began our search for an affordable location that would give us space to design a building that fits our vision for a welcoming place for all. After an extensive search and with early lead gifts, we purchased the buildings located at 1790 and 1800 University Avenue West in St. Paul.

The new Community Food Center will bring all food shelf programs, including the Foodmobile, food shelf grocery delivery program, and resource navigation services under one roof. This one location will be a hub for food support and will provide the space to expand more community-based programs out in the community.

With the support of our community, Keystone is committed to revitalizing these buildings and creating gathering space that will be a lasting investment in St. Paul.

View the Community Food Center Floor Plan

Watch this walk-through video to see our vision for the new center!

What will be possible at the new center!

This new building will allow Keystone to double the amount of food available, engage more volunteers, and will offer flexibility to evolve and expand as needs in our community continue to grow and change.

Each area of within the Community Food Center is designed to reflect our community – bright, welcoming, and vibrant! 

The new Community Food Center is easily accessed via public transit, bicycle, foot, personal vehicle, or transit partner.

  • Food Market

    The Community Food Center features a greatly expanded shopping area (triple the size of our current combined shopping spaces) and allows participants to have an efficient, responsive, and dignified shopping experience.

  • Warehouse

    The warehouse provides greater capacity and flexibility to capture and distribute food resources. The warehouse will include: additional refrigerator and freezer spaces, a loading dock (which we currently lack), and more square footage will increase the volume of food (especially of culturally specific food) and household items we can receive and distribute from 2.3 to 4.0 million pounds per year.

  • Garage

    The three-bay garage will allow us to expand Keystone’s Foodmobile fleet and support logistics for neighborhood-based community food distributions and home delivery of food resources to seniors.

  • Volunteer Space

    The Community Food Center expands capacity to engage volunteers, providing additional space to offer hands-on, meaningful volunteer opportunities to attract and engage our volunteers who keep Keystone running!

  • Community Room

    A gathering space where community partners will have space to share their services, such as tax assistance, caregiver support groups and financial education programs for community members at the center.

  • Community Support Suite

    This central administrative headquarters will allow all basic needs program staff to collarbone and innovate to expand support for neighbors in need. There will also be private meeting rooms for staff to meet with people to help them apply for financial assistance, enroll in public programs such as SNAP, and refer them to other supportive resources.

  • Lobby

    The lobby is the welcoming heart of the Community Food Center and will be a central hub where neighbors can meet and help neighbors.