The Northeastern Association for the Blind of Albany completed their brand-new parking lot on Central Avenue. The parking lot will provide much needed spaces to the non-profit's tenants at their two adjacent properties. The lot also offers a small green space for clients' guide dogs, complete with a picnic table donated by the Girls, Inc. club of Albany.
The new lot was completed in mid-November, and is now in use. For safety and security, the parking lot is fenced with handsome brick and iron; tenants are issued a code to gain entrance. New lightpoles have been added to ensure that the parking lot is well-lit. It's been landscaped as well, to make it more pleasant.
The lot will provide 10 spaces to the University at Albany, NABA's tenants at 299 Washington Avenue, as well as additional spaces for the future tenants at 80 Central Avenue, says Christopher Burke, NABA's Executive Director.
Eighty Central is currently empty, but NABA is in talks with a potential tenant for the old building, says Burke. If terms are agreed upon and met, this tenant would take a good portion of the building's 17,000 square feet, and NABA would use the remainder to expand its children's programming and technology resources, he says. NABA is already pressed for space in its current location at 301 Central, and by collaborating with this potential tenant, they could gain as much as 5,000 additional square feet.
The new tenant will not be named until all the paperwork has been finalized. In the interim, NABA is trying to identify funding to begin to rehab the old building, starting with the historic facade. This process could begin as early as spring, Burke says.
The collaboration with this new tenant is very exciting, Burke says. Building a new parking lot, securing tenants, and restoring an adjacent building for expanded programming is part of an innovative multi-phase approach to building and developing the agency. It's ambitious, but also it's exciting, Burke says. "That will make us permanent," he says.
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