The Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ) has purchased a building to permanently house its programming and operations in North Minneapolis.
NAZ has been renting its current facility at the corner of Penn and West Broadway for over a decade. Unfortunately, this location has been at the center of escalated community violence, punctuated by the building’s windows being shot out numerous times over the past two-and-a-half years. So, with its lease up for renewal this fall, NAZ took the opportunity to explore options for its operations on the Northside.
A building located at the corner of West Broadway and North Second Street was identified as a potential new home for NAZ, and not only was it available to rent, the owners were interested in selling the property. Purchasing over renting not only makes financial sense for NAZ but allows the organization more control over its future operations.
The nearly 19,000-square-foot building offers NAZ numerous benefits:
- Permanent space for Northside partner organizations to link to
- Location deemed significantly safer than our current office space according to personal and property crime statistics
- Lower operating costs compared to annual leases
- Designated space for NAZ programs, specifically Family Academy and support space for children and parents
- Room to grow, with some existing square footage fully leased until programmatic needs require it
- A prudent investment located on the edge of the North Loop, a few blocks from the Mississippi River, with numerous projects in development nearby, including the Upper Harbor Redevelopment Project
- Increased visibility, opportunity to brand the space in alignment with the NAZ mission, vision, and values
Furthermore, NAZ believes that this purchase is an investment in our community’s ongoing health and well-being.
With the acquisition of the building complete, attention has now turned to construction and remodeling to make the space code-compliant (i.e., installing an elevator to make the lower level ADA accessible) and fully functional for NAZ programming and staff. We hope to move into our new home early next year, with a projected completion date of late February 2023. You can hear NAZ CEO and President Sondra Samuels talk about the move in an interview with local news station KSTP here.