'It's awesome. It's been a 12-year saga': Local non-profits unveil newly renovated workspace

Jerry Forbes Centre opens Local non-profit organizations showed off their new shared workspace at the Jerry Forbes Centre for Community Spirit Monday morning.

Local non-profit organizations like the Edmonton Music Folk Fest, Santas Anonymous, and the Christmas Bureau of Edmonton showed off their new shared workspace at the Jerry Forbes Centre for Community Spirit Monday morning.

"It's awesome. It's been a 12 year saga," said Marty Forbes, son of the late Jerry Forbes who started Santas Anonymous in 1955. "We went through five premiers, three changes of government, of course a city hall change over, a horrible slump in the financial industry, and here we are opening up a building that is just magnificent."

Plans for a shared permanent home for over 15 non-profit organizations started in 2007, and actual renovations on a former fabric warehouse which will now serve as its home started about two and a half years ago.

The centre will accommodate as many as 18 full-time agencies in the building, providing office space, shared working centres, and warehouse space for the larger organizations, with the ability to modify existing spaces to fit the changing needs of the full-time and part-time organizations that now call this centre home.

Edmonton non-profits have identified access to affordable, long term work space as one of the biggest issues they face when it comes to serving the community.