The Allen Neighborhood Center in Lansing has chosen a new leader.
For six months, the board running the Allen Neighborhood Center has searched for a replacement for founding executive director Joan Nelson, who is retiring.
The search led them to Joseph Enerson, who has shared an office with Nelson for four years as the center’s business and financial manager.
Enerson says Nelson’s are “big shoes to fill.”
“She’s been a really great mentor, and I’m really excited to kind of pick up where she’s leaving off,” he said.
The center is opening a community health clinic and the Eastside Lansing Food Co-op in the coming weeks. Enerson is already thinking about other projects.
“We have two spaces upstairs, right above me right now, that are still vacant,” he explained. “They were not part of the scope of the Allen Place project. So, if I could wave a wand, it would be to have funding to build those out into usable spaces for the community, probably more housing.”
The center has completed Allen Place, an $11-million mixed use, mixed income development that includes a 21-unit apartment building.
