Up North Pride opens new community hub in Grand Traverse County

Up North Pride has moved into a new home on East Eighth Street in downtown Traverse City, giving the region’s LGBTQ+ community a dedicated place for programs, meetings and support. The space at 314 East Eighth Street now serves as a hub for one of the largest LGBTQ organizations in the area and marks a shift from borrowed rooms to a permanent community anchor.

The organization said it began moving into the building in May with the Commons Ground Collective. For Up North Pride, the move is about more than office space. Executive Director Adrienne Brown-Reasner said the goal was to create a place where people can show up as themselves without worrying about judgment over clothing, names or pronouns. That kind of everyday comfort, she said, is part of what makes a community space useful in practical terms, not just symbolic ones.

Up North Pride serves Traverse City’s five-county northern Michigan region and describes its mission as fostering inclusive spaces through education, resources, activism, advocacy and community-focused 2SLGBTQIA+ programs and events. A permanent location makes that mission easier to carry out year-round. It gives the group a base for gatherings, education and support services that can be easier to find and use for residents across Grand Traverse County and beyond.

The building itself has already gone through a transition. It was first announced in July 2025 as Up North Pride’s first physical location, after the group had long relied on borrowed spaces for meetings and events. The site formerly housed Copy Central and was being used temporarily while the Traverse City Housing Commission planned future workforce housing there. In 2025, volunteers cleaned the space, replaced carpeting, moved furniture and worked on landscaping to prepare it for use.

Brown-Reasner became Up North Pride’s first executive director in 2024 and its first full-time employee, a sign of how quickly the organization has grown. Its June 2026 calendar shows the new hub already functioning as a regular meeting place, with events including LGBTQ+ Seniors Coffee Morning, Game Night and a Parent Support Group info night at Commongrounds.

The organization is also using its new foothold to build outward. Up North Pride and TART Trails are hosting the third annual Rainbow Run on June 20, a four-mile event on the Boardman Lake Loop Trail beginning at the TART Boardman Loop in Traverse City. Together, the new home, the growing calendar and the continued public events point to a more durable presence for LGBTQ+ residents in northern Michigan, with a space designed for connection, visibility and stability.