MINNEAPOLIS — At the intersection of 42nd Avenue N and N Lyndale Avenue sits the old Camden Park State Bank building.
"It's not really a beautiful thing to look at. You know, when you go into the building it doesn't seem like it's been very well taken care of," said Anissa Keyes, President of Aruba Emotional Health Services.
The building has been a staple on the north side for more than century.
It's always been a mixed-use space, at one point housing a post office, a mortuary and various retail outlets, but overtime a portion of the building has sat vacant with the exception of a few newer businesses.
"It has all this historic richness right and it could definitely be an asset but its not being utilized as that now," said Keyes.
There's potential at the intersection, which Keyes says is why she recently purchased the building for more than a million dollars with the hopes of turning it into a brick and mortar for 15 BIPOC business owners.
"The space is going to be accessible, it's going to be nice, it's going to be renovated, the rents are going to be affordable," Keyes explained.
"There'll be a law firm, R. Sullivan Law will be there, you'll be able to come and eat at a plant based restaurant, Heal Minneapolis will be in the building." Keyes went on to say, "When you come into this building you'll know that you're supporting a Black business which to me just gives me butterflies."
For Keyes, its an investment in rewriting the script at the intersection which has seen its fair share of violent crimes.
"Often times what gets promoted or what gets put on the screen is all the negative things that are happening," said Keyes. "The need is to change the narrative, that what they think that they're seeing is not all that's here."
Giving business owners of color and the neighborhood an opportunity to live up to its greatest potential.
"Hopefully the small businesses that are there will use this as a platform, that they will just use this as a catalyst, that they won't stay there and they'll grow," said Keyes. "They’ll elevate and they’ll be in the position to do the same thing that I'm doing because I didn’t start here, somebody else created space for me, so I'm just creating space for others.”
Keyes and her business partners plan to invest a half million dollars in renovations of the historic building, which will include adding an elevator system.
Construction is set to begin in March, with a grand opening scheduled for July 1, 2022.
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