Star Tribune
YWCA Minneapolis sells Uptown fitness facility to nonprofit creating workforce development hub
YWCA Minneapolis is selling its longtime Uptown fitness facility and pool to a nonprofit that will convert the space into a workforce development and job training hub.
The 80,000-square-foot building, which has housed the YWCA programs for nearly 40 years, will be sold to Tending the Soil, a coalition of nonprofits and unions led by Black, Indigenous and people of color, for $4.25 million.
“We are very excited. We have big dreams,” said Emilia Gonzalez Avalos, executive director of Unidos MN, one of the nonprofits with Tending the Soil. “There’s an opportunity to again bring more vibrancy to the corridor.”
She said the organizations have been planning a workforce development center for years, but the initiative took on more urgency during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sale of the Uptown facility, which is near West Lake Street and includes an 185-spot parking ramp, is expected to close at the end of June.
The YWCA shocked the community last summer with the news that it was closing its Uptown and downtown fitness centers and pools Nov. 1. Both buildings are in high-profile corridors of the city, with the downtown facility on Nicollet Mall since 1929 and the Uptown facility on Hennepin Avenue since 1987.
Earlier this month, the YWCA announced it was selling its downtown building to St. David’s Center for Child and Family Development, a Minnetonka nonprofit that provides mental health and autism services to children. The purchase price wasn’t disclosed by either nonprofit.
As a result of the building closures, the YWCA, which still operates a building in Midtown, laid off 45 employees — about 13% of its workforce. About 300 swimmers in the YWCA’s Otters and Masters swim teams also had to find new swimming clubs including at South High School and Southwest High School.
Like other nonprofits struggling financially after the COVID-19 pandemic, YWCA leaders said they faced membership declines, staffing shortages and rising expenses, and had decided to move away from health and fitness to focus on child care, racial equity and youth programs.
Some YWCA members urged the city, park district or county to buy the buildings to keep them open to the public, but city and Park Board leaders said they couldn’t afford to do so.
Gonzalez Avalos said the organizations met with neighbors who were relieved to hear the building wouldn’t be torn down and turned into more high-rise condos or apartments, and will bring “new life” to an area with many vacant storefronts.
“They’re very excited,” she said. “This is going to create opportunities.”
Gonzalez Avalos said the organizations will renovate the building and reopen it as soon as later this year as the Rise Up Center, which will focus on increasing jobs for green building and clean energy fields. The location was ideal, she added, because it has plenty of space for growing programs and is near a transit line.
YWCA CEO Shelley Carthen Watson said in a statement that the space on Hennepin Avenue has long been a community asset, first as West High School when it opened in 1908, then as a YWCA and now as a nonprofit that “echoes our mission to eliminate racism, empower women and girls; and promote peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all.”
Rise Up Center
Tending the Soil formed in 2018 made up of Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha, Inquilinxs Unidxs por Justicia, New Justice Project, SEIU Local 26 and Unidos MN.
The new workforce development program is part of new efforts to diversify the growing energy sector. Across the U.S., the energy workforce is largely white and male. About 24% of the workforce is nonwhite, while women make up 26% of the sector, according to a 2023 U.S. Department of Energy report.
“We hear from the unions that they are eager to diversify their ranks. We hear from developers that are eager to diversify their employee pool,” Gonzalez Avalos said. “This is definitely a cutting edge program.”
The building will also house administrative offices for Unidos MN, SEIU Local 26, Tending the Soil and UFCW 663 and provide a public gathering space, classrooms and a first-of-its-kind worker cooperative for immigrants who are union members in the construction industry.
“This is a multi-sector workforce development program in partnership with unions and organizations deeply rooted in community, and I think that’s what makes this very unique,” Gonzalez Avalos said. “I believe this is going to be a national model.”
“Reaching 100,000 passengers in less than six months is a testament to the good things that can happen when we provide a service that is needed,” said MnDOT Commissioner Nancy Daubenberger. “We are very excited to reach this milestone and look forward to strengthening our partnerships with communities, as well as federal, state and local governments, and Amtrak to continue providing a safe, reliable, and sustainable transportation option.”
“Both are discovering who they are,” said stage manager and Armstrong senior Katie Spickelmier. The play reflects the “struggle of growing up in a society you don’t really fit into.”
Cast members are challenged with embodying beloved iconic characters while creating their own personal versions of them — while speaking their lines in British accents.
“Trying to put yourself in a whole different dialect is definitely a fun challenge for all of us — and trying to keep it appropriate and not silly,” Smallacombe said.
And then, of course, as with everything Harry Potter-related, there’s all the magic the production’s tech team has had to figure out how to depict without the benefit of Hollywood’s computer-generated special effects. They include the machinations of the time machine, a character shooting out of a fireplace, characters flying above the stage.
Lovitt and other staffers traveled to New York to see how Broadway pulled it off. It debuted there in 2018 as a five-hour play performed in two parts (and remains that length in the London production). It was later edited to a one-part version at three and a half hours, and in November will be presented on Broadway in under three hours (which is the version playing in Chicago). The high school version is even shorter, closer to two hours.
Actors from “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” rehearse a scene at Armstrong High School in Plymouth. The 40-scene play has a cast of more than 30 students. (Renée Jones Schneider)
Of course, Broadway, like Hogwarts, has access to magical elements not generally available to Midwestern high schools. For example, she said, there was a whole swimming pool directly under the stage, which cast members reached via a tunnel, wearing scuba gear and emerging soaking wet.
A St. Paul woman faces a felony charge for allegedly stealing a sheep from a local farm in Bloomington, according to court documents.
Mandy Kay Bower, 42, was arrested at Old Shakopee Road E. in Bloomington Saturday evening after officers saw her and a male walking with a dog and a sheep on a leash.
According to police, Bower told officers that she purchased the sheep for $200. However, one of the officers noticed burs, a prickly plant found in fields, all over Bower and the sheep.
The male with Bower told officers she stepped over the fence of a farm, put a leash on one of the sheep and pulled it through the fence, according to the charging document. Bower pulled so hard that the sheep was choking, the male told officers, according to the document.
The officers eventually spoke to an employee and owner of the nearby farm and confirmed that the sheep, a breeding hair ram worth approximately $500, had not been sold to Bower, according to court documents.
Bower is charged with rustling and livestock theft. In a booking photo, Bower appears to have a tattoo of a sheep covering her left cheek.
