Food bank to use old Chamber spot
Moving into former Chamber of Commerce building a ‘temporary solution’
How would Food for People, the nonprofit whose Eureka warehouse was flooded to ruin by a sewage backup, describe how the past 10 days have been?
“For us, I would say the word ‘crisis’ is right up there,” Carly Robbins, the organization’s deputy director, said Monday. “This is our main site where the majority of our staff works out of … it really has disrupted a lot of our operations.”
Fortunately, the nonprofit has a place to go. The organization is in the process of moving into a vacant building on the corner of Broadway and West Hawthorne streets, the former headquarters of the Eureka Chamber of Commerce.
The local New Life Service Company, a water damage restoration business, is helping to clean out the site so Food for People can move in sometime this week.
The building doesn’t have all the same equipment as the nonprofit’s own warehouse, but there’s enough space for the organization to revive its choice food pantry, which services around 1,300 people locally. It’s unclear when the choice pantry will be open.
“It’s a temporary solution,” Robbins said. “We really don’t have a timeline for how long we’ll be there.”
The city is charging rent from the organization: A whopping total of $1 for a three-month lease. That’s similar to the city’s former agreement with the Chamber of Commerce, which rented the space for $1 per year.
“It’s unusual that we have vacant space available,” said Public Works director Brian Gerving. “We wanted to do everything we could do to allow (Food for People) to continue to operate.”
The organization has been without its 14th Street warehouse since Feb. 28, when volunteers arrived to discover that sewage backup was shooting out of pipes and into the building. About two-thirds of the building eventually flooded.
Restoration efforts will involve digging into the warehouse’s walls and floors. The building is expected to be closed for some time.
Food for People owns and is insured for the building, but like all insurance, Robbins said there are caps — which means the organization will likely pay for at least some of the repair.
While the choice pantry is gone, the organization has kept its other programs running, including a nutrition initiative for children and a recent onsite pantry for senior citizens.
“The community has been great,” Robbins said. “We’ve been seeing financial donations come in, which has been wonderful.”
She added the organization is not currently accepting food donations, since it doesn’t have enough space to accommodate the added storage.
The old Chamber of Commerce building at 2112 Broadway
sits empty. On Monday afternoon, the building’s interior appeared to be in disarray, although cleanup efforts are underway.
With city approval, the chamber in mid-2018 relocated to another space closer to Eureka’s Old Town. Nearly a year later, the Eureka City Council approved a sale of the property to a hospitality company for the possible construction of a hotel.
The old building remains intact. Robbins said that when the city reached out about the new space, it indicated that it would need to be a temporary move, since the building is slated for “some kind of reconstruction.”
Gerving later confirmed that the company, SJN Hospitality LLC, still intends to buy the property, but the purchase has not been finalized. Without permits, Gerving estimates it will be some time before a hotel is constructed in the building’s place.