New location concentrates staff and resources significantly closer to most of its service areas

Children’s Aid today announced plans to move its headquarters from midtown to a new office space at West 124th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem. This move brings more than 200 staff, including program leadership and central administration, into one location. These staff will have greatly improved access to most of the organization’s 40+ sites across the city, including 11 in Harlem.

“We are incredibly excited to be moving uptown,” said Phoebe C. Boyer, president and CEO. “This move will reinforce our mission and values in many ways. It will help us work smarter and more efficiently by putting all of our program leadership and central administration under one roof. As a result, we are going to do a better job delivering our top-notch programs and services. It also further cements our commitment to the Harlem community, with the added benefit of being in closer proximity to most of our program sites.”

The new location is a build-to-suit commercial condominium, which will make the organization’s office footprint more efficient, saving on occupancy and energy costs over the long term. The office will be strategically laid out to support collaboration between program leadership and central administration, all in service to Children’s Aid’s mission of helping children, youth, and their families reach their full potential.

The new headquarters will be centrally located near several of New York City’s major transportation hubs as well as the Children’s Aid Dunlevy Milbank Community Center, its family stabilization services, several early childhood education facilities, and more.

“This new headquarters is also an investment in the future of Children’s Aid,” said Boyer. “It ensures that we can lock in our office space costs over the long term, which is all the more critical today as we confront the challenges all nonprofits face of delivering critical services with increasingly uncertain funding sources.”

The new, 55,565-square-foot space will be spread over four floors. Children’s Aid plans to move into its new location by summer 2020.

For more than 100 years, the Children’s Aid headquarters were located at 105 East 22nd Street. Children’s Aid and its fellow tenants at the United Charities Building, Community Service Society and the Mission Society, sold the property in 2015. Since then, Children’s Aid temporarily split its administrative functions across three locations—two in midtown and one in Harlem. Over that time, the Children’s Aid Board of Trustees has worked with organization leadership to identify a permanent headquarters that best suited its mission.

“Throughout our history, real estate has been a critical strategic asset,” said Iris Abrons, chair of the Children’s Aid Board of Trustees. “We have benefited tremendously from the decisions of those who came before us, and we believe establishing our new headquarters in Harlem will help ensure our presence supporting children, youth, and families in New York City for generations to come.”

“We are honored to have helped Children’s Aid further align their mission with their real estate,” said Stephen Powers, National Leader of Transwestern’s Nonprofit Practice. “The purpose-built headquarters will bolster their collaborative culture while increasing connectivity to populations they serve.”

Transwestern’s Stephen Powers, Lindsay Ornstein, Ryan McKinney, and Mac Means represented Children’s Aid in the purchase of its new headquarters space. The building owner, SAAB Management, was represented in-house.

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For more than 165 years, Children’s Aid has been committed to ensuring that there are no boundaries to the aspirations of young people, no limits to their potential. We know what it takes to ensure children and youth grow up strong and healthy, and ready to thrive in school and life: excellent education and health care, social-emotional support, and strong stable families. Today, we serve nearly 50,000 children, youth, and their families at more than 40 sites in four under-resourced neighborhoods in New York City. For additional information, contact Anthony Ramos at (212) 949-4938 or anthonyr@ChildrensAidNYC.org.