After a year’s worth of work behind the scenes, ASA is happy to announce that we have successfully closed on the purchase of our existing buildings!  While not immediately apparent, this is a significant step forward is working towards the school expansion to K-12.

Additional information is on the school operations page of the website, but we just wanted to thank all the people involved in this project up to this point.  By owning our buildings ASA will be able to start working on zoning and conditional use planning that are the precursors to design and financing for the eventual expansion.  There are also some minor cost savings to owning our own buildings as opposed to leasing from an outside organization.

The acquisition was an approximately $6.8 million dollar project for the current properties and is paid through our current lease aid from the state.  This process differs from traditional public districts because charters do not have access to referendum bonding so we accomplished this through a partnership with the City of Isanti on a tax-conduit bond which does not cost the city or taxpayers anything additional (it just lends their name to a lower loan rate access vs commercial loan rates) and the remainder through Propel Nonprofits and CSDC our previous property owner.