The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
AGENCY DIGS IN PROGRESS
Social agency to move 4 blocks down
A transformation is taking place inside a former furniture store that will become the offices of the Lorain County Community Action Agency.
At the beginning of 2017, renovation started inside the former T.N. Molas & Sons Furniture, 936 Broadway, to create the new administrative offices, along with client service areas, for the Community Action Agency. The social service agency runs Head Start preschool for children and other programs.
The plans have taken shape for more than a year, said Jackie Boehnlein, president and chief executive officer of the Lorain County Community Action Agency, and building owner Jon Veard, president of United Property Management Co. of Lorain.
The buildings “looked abandoned” when the two began
“We wanted to retain as much of the character as possible.”
— Jackie Boehnlein, president and chief executive officer of the Lorain County Community Action Agency
negotiating about a possible move there, Boehnlein said.
Veard added he spent hours over several days looking at the structures and imagining what would have to happen to create a workable office environment.
When that vision became clearer, he shared it with Boehnlein.
“It was exciting,” she said. “You really have to look past what’s here. But once we looked at the proximity to Hopkins Locke, and all the way around, it right-sized us.”
The Hopkins Locke Head Start building, 1050 Reid Ave. Lorain, sits down the street from the new complex.
The Molas building will become the destination for offices at the current Community Action Agency headquarters, 502-506 Broadway, and for offices currently in the Duane Building, 401 Broadway.
The new complex is three attached buildings that totaled about 35,000 square feet. Workers have torn down some parts to reduce the interior space to about 14,000 square feet.
The current Community Action Agency offices, 502506 Broadway, have about 20,000 square feet for 35 employees.
Crews filled four, 40-cubic-yard containers to empty the former furniture store from the leaky roof down to the five layers of carpet on the floor. There was about four inches of water over two or three layers
of carpet in the basement, Boehnlein said.
It was like a horror movie, she said about the building interior.
“Imagine ‘Hoarders,’” Boehnlein said, referring to the A&E television show about professional interventions for “people who compulsively hoard possessions.”
The new design, drawn by architect James A. Yorks of Amherst, will keep a monumental staircase inside. Just about everything else – rooftops, windows, wiring, plumbing and an elevator – will be new.
“We wanted to retain as much of the character as possible,” Boehnlein said. “It’ll be new with old character.”
The first floor will have space for direct services for clients; the second floor will have 10 work stations, a coffee area, restrooms and a room for conferences and training. The basement largely will house the mechanical systems of the building.
There will be entrances off Broadway and from the rear of the buildings.
The project usually has a dozen workers, and sometimes up to 25, building the interior.
The renovations will cost an estimated $1.2 million, with financing through Northwest Savings Bank, Veard said.
Once the interior work is completed, the Community Action Agency could move its offices this summer. There is more to come. Another nearby building, known as “The Modern” building of 1902, will become the kitchen and storage for the agency’s Meals on Wheels delivery program.