Goodwill of Greater Washington to build Arlington affordable housing as part of a first-of-its-kind redevelopment + the Flint YMCA

The Washington Business Journal reports that in Arlington County, Virginia, Goodwill is working with the Arlington Housing Corporation, a nonprofit, to redevelop a store site where they will have their store on the ground floor, with affordable housing above.  From the article:

Goodwill, a nonprofit that provides job training, education and other services to people with disabilities or who face other employment challenges, has owned the 1.4-acre parcel at 10 South Glebe Road since 1999. The property includes a 1950s-era, 26,000-square-foot building and parking lot, where the charity collects and resells donated items to help fund its operations. Goodwill now aims, in a joint venture with a Arlington-based nonprofit developer AHC Inc., to demolish and redevelop that site with a multistory housing complex, including something like 100 affordable units over a new store and donation center.

Nonprofits tend to not be particularly innovative so this is a big thing.  But I don't understand why nonprofits don't think of themselves as more intrepid, as "social enterprises" and become more oriented to this kind of activity.

Some nonprofits run social enterprises as a way to generate income for their program.  In fact, Goodwill, which works with the disabled, has done this for decades with their thrift stores.  In the early 2000s, some Goodwill stores repositioned around higher end thrift and fashion, by differentiating among the goods that were donated.

The Orange County Register reports ("Tiyya Foundation expands culinary program to help young immigrant mothers begin careers") on an immigrant support group, that runs a catering operation and a one star Michelin restaurant in Los Angeles to raise funds and employ people.

By contrast, a church in my greater neighborhood in Salt Lake is dissolving, and rather than sell their property so it can be redeveloped for affordable housing, they've sold it to a developer who will build market rate housing.

In "When BTMFBA isn't enough: keeping civic assets public through cy pres review" (2016), I've suggested that Attorney General offices need to pay more attention to nonprofits and how they deal with their real estate.  There is the tension between getting the most money and doing "good works."  But it seems to me that the Church missed the boat, compared to Goodwill in Arlington.

Basically, I guess I'm saying apply the "transformational projects action planning" lens to nonprofits when it comes to opportunities for better using real estate resources, and for seeding projects like social enterprises that can contribute to communities in extranormal ways.

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The Flint Michigan YMCA building is beyond its useful life and needs to be replaced.  They are doing a development ("Downtown Flint YMCA project gets $1.5M grant, $5.5M loan from state," Flint Journal) that will include:

a 2,400-square-foot medical rehabilitation facility, 50 apartments and more than 7,500 square feet of office space.

YMCA officials have said their new facility is expected to include a competitive lap pool, family splash pad, basketball court, exercise studios, a running/walking track, men, women’s and universal locker rooms.

Years ago the Boys and Girls Club on 14th Street NW in Washington DC suggested a similar kind of project, with housing above, as a way to generate revenue from the land to support their programs but it was opposed by the Ward 1 City Councilman. Apparently, a development did occur on the parking lot later, but the facility still there, seems to be closed.  And the development doesn't look like it's affordable housing.