TOWER — An inflatable moose reaching up halfway to the roofline waved in visitors to Tower’s newest Main Street business on Saturday.
z’Up North is now located in what was the old Tower News building. But the building is barely recognizable, except for the old weathervane that features, coincidentally, a moose. A moose is z’Up North’s unofficial mascot, and a moose was the bucket list item of the Tower News’ longtime owner Phyllis Burgess, who never got to see one in the wild. It earned a spot on the old newspaper’s masthead.
After purchasing the building last August, owner Andrea Zupancich decided to do a total renovation, both exterior and interior.
“We were renting an office in Tower,” said owner Zupancich, but as a real estate agent, she understood that owning a building is a better investment. She also wanted a presence on Main Street.
The renovation began last fall and took longer than expected due to some unexpected complications, including the need to jack the building up to replace a rotting foundation. Other issues were expected, she said.
“The ‘new furnace’ was as old as my furnace guy,” she said with a laugh. The aim was to preserve as much of the interior as possible, which included hardwood floors and tinned ceilings. But she also opened up the interior of the building, added new windows and doors, interior and exterior insulation, and new siding. The front porch of the building will be refinished soon, she said, since they needed to wait for the weather to warm up.
With over 20 years of experience in the real estate business, Zupancich knows both the business and the market.
She started her career in the hospitality industry, working for the Radisson hotel group in the Twin Cities and eventually moved up to this area to help open the Fortune Bay Resort Casino. While living up here, she met her husband, Jim Zupancich, and settled into life on the Iron Range, moving on to other opportunities a few years after Fortune Bay opened. In the early 2000s, the hospitality business had slowed, and she decided to move into real estate. She had worked in a real estate office while in college and felt it would be a good fit. She started working for Culbert Realty in 2002. In 2006, the economy again had slowed, and with the support from her husband, she decided to open her own realty business. She opened an office in Babbitt, and a few years later opened a second in Ely. At first, it was just herself and two part-time employees. Now, she is running four offices after adding Aurora and Tower, and has 14 agents, all independent contractors, working for the business.
Real estate has become a perfect fit, she said.
“Your day is always different,” she said, and allows her to meet lots of people and help them find what they want.
“Everybody needs a place to live,” she said.
The job also allows for time outdoors.
“You don’t know when you will spend a day walking a 40 (acre lot),” she said.
The job does take dedication, she said.
“You can be self-employed or self-unemployed.”
The business does get slower in the winter because some properties, such as lake access, are not accessible.
And while the overall market has been down in the last year, Zupancich said the business had its busiest year ever. And while interest rates are a bit higher than the last few years, right now they are closer to the average, she said.
“Interest rates are always moving up or down.”
The new office will be staffed regularly, with agents Joe Rasmusson and Jodi Nyman, along with Zupancich. The company currently has 47 listings available.
The business website is www.zupnorth.com.