Fire At 1623 Morgan Ave. N. Reportedly Being Treated As Arson, JNS Reader Reports The Property Ownership And Taxpayer Trail Turns Up A Blizzard Of Paper, WHO IS ORYXX EQUITY HOLDINGS INC? Plus JNS Blog Goes To Deepest, Darkest Africa To Find The Meaning Of "Oryxx"

Stock photo, DOES NOT depict fire described in the blog post by John Hoff

A fire took place a couple nights ago at 1623 Morgan Ave. N. and a regular reader of this blog did what this blog often does: dug into the trial of property ownership.

Word from this reader is the fire is being investigated as an arson with the tenant of the property recently evicted, according to information being passed around Facebook. (Take that for what it's worth, no other media is reporting on the fire except neighborhood Facebook forums, so I use the quality of information available and make a public note of it. Heck, the mainstream media are BARELY reporting on this Fourth of July weekend's spate of three shootings and two homicides, and it's ONLY SATURDAY AFTERNOON) (But back to the story about the fire) 

The taxpayer of the property is listed as Oryxx Equity Holdings LLC, whose address is a mailbox in the 55411 zip code...

Meanwhile the owner of the property is listed as "4531 Camden North LLC." 

Doing a little bit of digging, the reader reports as follows:
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So, I googled Oryxx and came up with a Todd Ellison.  (...) Googling  Todd Ellison leads me to a site with a bunch of businesses he is involved in, most of which have NoMi addresses for names. (...) 

Don't know how this could be made into something worth publishing.  There are 15 LLCs with the same address of 3539 Girard and then MN Property Holdings Inc at 5101 Olson Hwy. #1000 and North Star Prop. Holdings at 5115 Excelsior, #391.
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The reader tells me I might know plenty about this already, which is far too much praise. If I knew anything, I'd probably have published it already. I don't know anything about this Oryxx entity, but that's the nature of extensive rental property holders in North Minneapolis. One day we look around and somebody owns a couple dozen properties under some new and creative corporate name. 

Where did they come from? Are they connected to landlord entities already present in our neighborhood with their own extensive histories? Are they actually an old entity under a new name? 

We don't know. It appears, however, that as old rental property empires collapse, new empires rise to take their place. If the city wants to break the cycle of problematic landlords with extensive holdings, then properties need to be snapped up when the old empires are collapsing before new empires grab up the properties like a never ending game of Monopoly. (Only the cards in this Monopoly game are MUCH MORE INTERESTING: Somebody was stabbed in one of your apartments. Pay $200 to replace the ratty old carpeting with ratty old carpeting that doesn't have bloodstains) 

What needs to happen in North Minneapolis? Single family homes and duplexes need to become HOMESTEADS. The number of rental properties needs to be CAPPED. And the city needs to make its property website searchable by name of owner so residents can, at a minimum, figure out who owns what and document the inevitable patterns which emerge. (North Minneapolis residents have been asking for this minor change in the city's website for something like five years, now) 

By the way, I thought the word "Oryxx" looked familiar from the many games of Scrabble I've won handily over the course of my life. Sure enough, an "oryx" (note there's just one "x") is a large antelope native to Africa. So I assume an "Oryxx" is the same animal, only with an extra "x" just to look cool? 

Why anybody would name a corporation that...

I have no idea.