JA relocating, selling former Goodwill building in OCC
 Carrie McKee |
This does not mean JA SoCo is abandoning its long-time extracurricular financial-education outreach to primary and secondary students, explained President and CEO Carrie McKee.
Instead, she said in an interview with the Westside Pioneer, the nonprofit's board of directors recently decided “to shift our focus from a simulated city to a more mobile and virtual approach. We will take our simulated city on the road, rather than bring the students here. It's a significant transition, but we're excited about it. We want to be relevant, offering our students the most innovative programs possible.”
JA SoCo has owned and maintained its offices in the building on the north side of West Colorado Avenue's 2300 block since buying it from Goodwill in 2014. With its large warehouse-type space, the nonprofit saw it then as ideal for the construction of two business “towns” that JA instructors could use to give visiting students hands-on entrepreneurial experiences.
Also appealing was the property having plenty of off-street parking, plus space along the avenue for school buses to load and unoad.
But school districts are budgeting less and less money for field trips now; also significant is what McKee called “the Amazon effect,” in which “more products and services are delivered to clients. Store owners in Old Colorado City and all over the country are moving away from storefronts to a more digital delivery.”
Since 2012, a fundraising campaign has been under way to build a “Biz Town” for fifth-graders and a “Finance Park” for eighth-graders in the OCC building, at an estimated cost of just under $4 million. According to McKee, about $3.4 million has been pledged or given.
Now, she said, her agency is going back to the donors to seek their approval for “repurposing” their money.
Details for the new strategy are being fleshed out by a JA SoCo task force. “We're exploring how to set up programs that will be sustainable and viable for years to come,” McKee said.
The space being sold does not include the Goodwill thrift store at 23rd and Colorado.
A new location for JA SoCo and its eight employees is being determined. One thing is certain: Without a center on-site, the organization will need less space than previously perceived, she noted.
Over a year ago, the Center for Free Enterprise was named for Karl and Mary Flemke, who had both been deeply involved with JA, and a sign with their names was put on the building. Karl had died in 1994 and Mary died later in 2017.
That sign has been removed, McKee said, out of respect to them, and they will be honored in another way.
Westside Pioneer article