Overview & Challenge

Due to the demand for its services, Forte Real Estate Partners conducted a two-year search to find a suitable office-warehouse space for Minnesota child hunget nonprofit, Every Meal. Senior Vice President of Real Estate Advisory, Dan Lofgren, assisted with evaluation, site search, and communication with their current landlord Link Logistics.

More than 300,000 Minnesota children face food insecurity on any given night, especially on weekends when they don’t have access to school meal programs. Every week during the school year, students enrolled in Every Meal’s Weekend Meal Program receive food bags containing 4-5 pounds of a variety of shelf-stable fruits, vegetables, proteins, and grains to have enough food for the weekend.

Strategy

The Roseville area was the target for Every Meal’s search due to the location of employees, volunteers, and easy access to freeways. Located at 2723 Patton Road in Roseville, Every Meal has been leasing a portion of the building from Link Logistics for seven years. “This is not an expansion for the sake of expanding, which Link Logistics truly understands as one of our community partners who contributed a $160,000 infrastructure grant to make a true impact in the lives of hungry Minnesota kids,” said Rob Williams, Every Meal President. “We keep growing because there are still kids who are hungry. We do more because we believe that every child should have every meal.” Every Child. Every Meal. Is the organization’s vision statement.

“Often, landlords won’t entertain offers from tenants to purchase its building. But in this case, we were able to begin conversations with Link Logistics very early in our evaluation process which provided both parties the appropriate time to gain approvals within their respective organizations.,” said Dan Lofgren, Senior Vice President – Real Estate Advisory.

Results

Every Meal was able to acquire the 68,000 square foot building from Link Logistics, adding 25,000 square feet to their existing space.  This expansion will effectively double Every Meal’s volunteer, food storage, and food delivery space and better allow it to more effectively fulfill the increasing demand for its services. Furthermore, the building will be redesigned for maximum warehouse efficiency, improving the organization’s operations and services to the children they serve.

Every Meal financed the acquisition thanks to generous donors, a grant from the State of Minnesota, and a short-term loan through Minnesota Lakes Bank. Forte Real Estate Partners helped the nonprofit in its two-year search to find suitable office-warehouse space to acquire.