The grand opening of La Colmena introduces a new way for the community to lease land from the City of Santa Ana.
Santa Ana’s first community land trust, La Colmena, is a cooperative business hub – including a micro-farm and a coffee shop – spearheaded by THRIVE Santa Ana that began as a vision in 2016, where they advocated for land development that included the community.
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In 2020, THRIVE Santa Ana took a major step forward when the organization secured a 99-year lease for the land from the City of Santa Ana.
In early April, La Colmena opened its doors.
“[Since La Colmena] is a site that’s stewarded by a Community Land Trust, there is the ability to negotiate leases and rents that are below market rate,” said Ana Urzua, the Board President of THRIVE Santa Ana and the Executive Director of Cooperación Santa Ana.
La Colmena, previously the Walnut and Daisy Micro-Farm, currently hosts three cooperatives, La Milpa Café, SALSA, and Duugich Art.
With a micro-farm located on the site, SALSA provides fresh produce for residents, La Milpa Café is a small shop that offers drinks and pastries, and Don Gelacio shares his artisanal work with the community at Duugich Art.
The cooperative business model is collectively owned and governed by its members, who equally share in both the benefits and responsibilities. Unlike typical businesses, cooperatives give members an equal voice to promote fairness and well-being of the community, shares Ivan Flores, a worker/owner of SALSA.
“We work in a horizontal structure where we’re all equal worker/owners, so we all make our decisions, financial decisions, as a cooperative together,” said Flores.
“It’s different from a typical place where, as a business, you just sign a lease,” said Urzua. “The operators here — the operadores, we call them — have been involved in the design, the planning, the decision making and they get to steward the site together.”
A community land trust (CLT) is a non-profit organization with the primary mission of stewarding land for the benefit of the community. Oftentimes CLTs are used for affordable housing, urban farms or business spaces for the community.
In May 2023, La Colmena grew as a pilot project under the California Economic Resilience Fund with $3.8 million of state funding. THRIVE Santa Ana utilized funds to replace a construction loan for the micro-farm on Walnut and Daisy to develop La Colmena.
Rather than just providing a space for businesses to operate, La Colmena wants to increase access to healthy food and recreational spaces for the local community.
“It’s made me very excited to see this project [that has] taken so many years,” said Pilar Lara, worker/owner of La Milpa Café.
“It’s made me very happy because I can be a model for the community that, ‘Hey, look, we can do it.’ Let’s work together and we can make a more spaces like this one”
Don Gelacio, worker/owner of Duugich Art, agrees and hopes that the space will not only be beneficial for the businesses but the community that they are serving.
“I hope that the community also participates by purchasing our items and we also support them in whatever way we can,” said Gelacio. “As the name suggests, it’s a community. We help them and they help us, that’s what it’s all about.”
La Colmena is also growing produce on site with the SALSA Food Hub, which was previously located at CRECE’s La Granjita.
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“I think also in terms of [La Colmena’s] physical location, being around the neighborhood, it does help us out a lot more,” said Flores, “because we’ve noticed a lot more foot traffic than we’ve had before.”
Local entrepreneurs are also given the chance to vend at the open-air market called “Mercadito Carrusel,” giving locals additional support through the use of the land.
“We don’t feel like you have to do things all by yourself,” said Ana Gaspar, a member of THRIVE Santa Ana. “Life is hard, but here you have support and resources.”
Gaspar hopes for future advocacy of affordable housing through THRIVE, a concept that the organization hopes to fulfill in the future.
“I’m really excited about having a tangible example of community driven development and community ownership,” said Urzua. “[It’s a visible landmark that shows] the ways in which it just generates wealth for the entire neighborhood and our local economy.”
“It’s utilized by the neighbors,” said Urzua. “It is not displacing or changing the character, but it’s building up what is here. It’s honoring the history and the roots of this place.”
