Finance & Commerce/Anne Bretts
Junior Achievement plans expansion in St. Paul
Staff and supporters of Junior Achievement of the Upper Midwest celebrated this week as they closed on the $4.75 million acquisition of a building at 1745 University Ave. W. in St. Paul.
The party also kicked off what will be a year of renovations needed to turn the 1916 brick box into a $17.5 million business learning lab aimed at reaching 34,000 kids a year. The three-story, 64,000-square-foot Class B building was completed in 1916. It once served as a home for the Avalon School.
While work hasn’t started on the building, just walking up to the front door and seeing the temporary banner for the new center had an impact on Junior Achievement CEO Gina Blayney.
“I saw that big sign and it just took my breath away,” she said.
The organization now reaches about 17,000 students at its leased space in Maplewood. Leaders looked for more than a year to find a larger building with mass transportation and a location convenient to students and its 9,500 business volunteers throughout the Twin Cities, she said.
The site is on the Green Line light rail transit route between the downtowns of St. Paul and Minneapolis. It’s also a neighbor of the Midway YMCA, at 1761 University.
The organization’s building committee worked with Tanya Bell and Judd Fenlon of Grand Real Estate Advisors in St. Paul.
“It took us a year to find this place,” she said
The nonprofit also launched a $20 million “Let’s Build” capital campaign to create the center and support the Junior Achievement of the Upper Midwest Foundation.
Jim and Patricia Hemak have led the campaign with a $4 million gift. Jim Hemak, who first got involved in JA while he was in high school, went on to business success as the largest franchisee in the nation for Great Clips. He now is semi-retired.
Minneapolis-based RSP Architects designed the sleek new interior and Golden Valley-based Mortenson Construction will handle the renovations.
The building will include JA BizTown and JA Finance Park, spaces where students work at businesses, pay taxes and hold elections to fill positions in “City Hall.” The new center also will include a business incubator, where students can learn how to start real businesses.
The building will include the organization’s offices.
Work is slated to be done in time for the start of school in 2018.
The seller is 1745 University LLC, an entity related to a private investor in Andover. The property last sold for $900,000 in 1998, according to property records. The current purchase price works out to $74.22 per square foot.
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