Finance & Commerce
An 89,464-square-foot building for the Athlos Leadership Academy is slated to rise up on vacant land at the northeast corner of 101st Avenue and Noble Parkway in Brooklyn Park. The Boise, Idaho-based Charter School Fund is in the process of acquiring the land from Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy. (Staff photo: Bill Klotz)
A charter school is the latest entrant in Brooklyn Park’s building boom.
New Visions Academy, one of Minnesota’s oldest charter schools, plans to move to an 89,464-square-foot school that will be constructed on vacant land in the northern Twin Cities suburb.
The Boise, Idaho-based Charter School Fund will build the structure and lease it to the school, which will be rebranded as the Athlos Leadership Academy, according to Brooklyn Park planning documents. (The school will draw on a mind-body fitness curriculum developed by Boise-based Athlos Academies, a partner of the Charter School Fund.)
The Brooklyn Park Planning Commission on Wednesday evening was slated to consider a comprehensive plan amendment for the project because the land is zoned for single-family development. The building will go up on 12.1 acres of vacant land at the northeast corner of 101st Avenue and Noble Parkway, which the Charter School Fund is in the process of acquiring from Xcel Energy.
A private venture that focuses on charter schools, the Charter School Fund already has more than $100 million invested in 650,000 square feet of space, according to the company’s website. Officials with the fund and Athlos were not immediately available for comment.
New Visions Principal Jennifer Geraghty said the school’s board decided last year that the 19-year-old institution needed more space to grow beyond its roughly 230 kindergarten through eighth grade student body.
Since the late 1990s the school has leased about 30,000 square feet at 1800 Second St. NE in Minneapolis. The school has temporarily moved to the Edinbrook Church, at 4300 Edinbrook Parkway in Brooklyn Park, for the upcoming school year.
Brooklyn Park documents describe a one-story brick and stucco structure in the Georgian architecture style, with pre-cast concrete pillars and a decorative cupola to “evoke a patriotic feel.” (Submitted rendering)
“The building we were in was always very, very small, and we wanted to get bigger,” Geraghty said.
Plus, she said, “There are so many charter schools in northeast Minneapolis; the market is pretty saturated.”
Expanding to nearly 90,000 square feet could allow for up to 1,000 students, and the potential to add high school grades in the future, Geraghty said. The school conservatively expects to double its student population if it meets its goal of opening the new school in fall 2014.
The number of teachers and other staff at the school will double from the 40 to 50 on the current payroll, Geraghty said.
Geraghty says the school latched on to Brooklyn Park for the reason that many businesses have seen it as an attractive place to build: It is one of the closest suburbs with undeveloped land — and transportation access provided through Highways 610 and 169.
Amid prairie a mile to the west, Ryan Cos. US continues to work on two new office buildings, totaling about 650,000 square feet, at the Target Northern Campus. Target Corp. plans to move 3,900 technology workers from downtown Minneapolis to Brooklyn Park.
In the case of the future school site, Minneapolis-based Xcel has held on to about 30 acres for years as a potential substation location, but has determined that it does not need the entire site, said Brooklyn Park senior planner Todd Larson. The city staff is recommending an amendment to the comprehensive plan.
Geraghty also thinks Brooklyn Park’s physical fitness goals go along with the Athlos curriculum –– which emphasizes nutrition, athletics and extracurricular activities to build a better mind and body balance. School officials have reached out to park officials to discuss possible activities involving the city’s Eidem Historical Farm just to the south.
City documents describe a one-story brick and stucco structure in the Georgian architecture style, with pre-cast concrete pillars and a decorative cupola to “evoke a patriotic feel.” Classrooms will surround a central gymnasium, with a small second floor in the building’s center for storage.
Geraghty did not know construction costs since the Charter School Fund is managing the project.
But Nicole LeBarron Thompson of Station 19 Architects in Minneapolis estimates a nearly 90,000-square-foot charter school would likely cost $12 million to $18 million to build.
“You usually build to double” the student body, Thompson said of charter school projects, which Station 19 has handled.
The fact that New Visions is doing more shows that “they’re recognizing that there’s a demand for them to expand,” Thompson said.
