Change Labs hosts groundbreaking ceremony for new headquarters

Photo credit: Raymond Chee

Change Labs celebrated a big win with the alumni of their business incubator and leaders of the To’Nanees’Dizi Local Government as they broke ground on their new headquarters in Tuba City. They will be neighbors to the local Chapter. The new headquarters will be a space for entrepreneurs and community members to gather. 

Although the initial building will be small, Change Labs plans to grow their presence in the future and establish a campus of buildings to support local businesses. The new Change Labs headquarters plans to be a communal space for the public, offering work space, micro retail opportunities, a coffee bar, and conference rooms for trainings, workshops, and meetings.

On the outside of the building, there will be community gardens raised by local farmers that are in the Change Labs program. The coffee bar will also act as a marketplace for entrepreneurs in the program to have an opportunity to sell their goods and have their businesses displayed. The design and development of the new headquarters is being managed by Navajo-owned Rock Gap Engineering.

Obtaining the .85 acres of land was no small feat. Before being able to break ground at the new location, Change Labs faced years of obstacles trying to secure land for their headquarters.

“We’ve been working on this for four years,” Heather Fleming said. 

Fleming, the executive director of Change Labs, said it was a hard and frustrating process. The obstacles in leasing buildings and land on the Navajo Nation was a rough journey. 

“I feel like we were on the verge of giving up,” she said, adding that they were worried they would have to leave the Navajo Nation and set up in a border town. 

But despite the challenges, the goal of Change Labs to stay on the Navajo Nation, was met when the To’Nanees’Dizi Local Government established a land use agreement with the organization.

Fleming said Chapter tract land is usually reserved for government initiatives so this idea to establish an agreement with nonprofit is unprecedented in Tuba City and as a result, came with its bumps and challenges. Everyone is learning as they go.

“We are so grateful to them for basically taking charge of the situation,” Fleming said of To’Nanees’Dizi Local Government. “I understand how difficult it could be for them to make this decision because land is so valuable on Navajo.”

Since 2019, Change Labs has been housed at the Moenkopi Inn Legacy campus and the nonprofit is very grateful for the hospitality of the Moenkopi Developers Corporation, Fleming said. With Moenkopi’s support, Change Labs was able to stay in Tuba City until they could find a permanent home.

There was opportunity to move to border towns that had space for the nonprofit, towns such as Page and Flagstaff, but it went against Change Lab’s mission.

“The whole point of Change Labs is to foster a Native economy, and it wouldn’t be the right message if we said, ‘We’re going to foster Native economies in border towns,’” Fleming said, adding that it’s already happening with other organizations because it’s so difficult to access land on the Navajo Nation for a business.

The support for government buildings, grocery stores and hospitals are great but getting space for small businesses is a struggle that Fleming has faced and sees Change Labs’ clients facing all the time. 

Home-based entrepreneurs use their kitchen tables as workspace, clearing it multiple times a day for family meals. Without dedicated workspace, other amenities like printers and marketing tools, become challenging to store. Many entrepreneurs enrolled in Change Labs’ programs have unreliable internet service. So, creating a physical space for business owners to work, network, and learn how to run successful businesses on the reservation is a mission Fleming is set on accomplishing.

“I think in order to create this new narrative about what it is to be a Native American entrepreneur, we have to build that presence in our communities and one of the best ways to do that is through a physical building. So, this is a huge deal for us,” she said of the new headquarters.

During the transition, Change Labs won’t have a physical space for people to visit but since the pandemic started, the nonprofit has been conducting business virtually and they plan to still meet the needs of all their clients.

“Infrastructure for us is infrastructure for the entrepreneurs in our community,” Fleming said, adding she’s excited to have more space for present and future entrepreneurs.