[Newspaper]
Publication: The Muncie Star
Muncie, IN, United States
vol. 109, no. 24, p. 18, col. 3-6
United Way Board Might Get New Office
By GREG MAYNARD
Star Staff Reporter
The United Way board Monday discussed the possibility of relocating its offices.
The organization has been offered a group of buildings on Macedonia Avenue that formerly housed the Owens-Illinois glass factory. The property is owned by Sheller-Globe, which has offered the property free of charge.
Board President Ben Delk said several areas in the proposal needed to be discussed, including the possibility of selling or leasing other buildings on the property that United Way couldn’t use.
The building in which the United Way is interested is the former Hemingway [sic] Hemingray Glass office building, which is a two-story brick structure with about 2,400 square feet on each floor.
A report on the building’s condition by Jim Gooden of Gooden Associates architectural firm said the building was sound structurally. But, he said, about [dollar:$75,000] to [dollar:$80,000] worth of work needed to be done to remodel it to United Way’s needs.
Gooden said the building was built in the late 1920s and had been well maintained for many years. It has sustained minor moisture damage in recent years, Gooden said, mainly because it has not been maintained.
Included in the proposal from Sheller-Globe is another office building to the north of the Hemingway [sic] Hemingray Glass building occupied by The American Press printing company and a large warehouse area to the west of the two office buildings.
Delk said a local manufacturing company was interested in buying the warehouse space and Robert Stevens, the owner of the printing company, had expressed an interest in buying the building he occupies, which he presently rents from Sheller-Globe.
"We're negotiating right now with a couple of other companies to take the extra property," said Peter Tutoli executive director of the United Way. "We don’t want to take that large of a piece of property without some plans on what to do with it."
Adding to the uncertainty of the situation is the need of Family Services, a United Way agency, to find more office space.
Family Services recently agreed to a 3-year contract with General Motors to be part of a new drug and alcohol abuse treatment program the automaker is starting.
The group is now housed on the upper floor of the United Way building on East Washington Street.
To be able to adequately provide for the expected client load with the new program, agency officials say, the agency needs about 3,000 square feet of office space, at least 20 parking spaces, handicapped accessibility, and needs to be near a city bus line and the Ball State campus.
The price goal for the proposal is to spend no more than [dollar:$1,500] a month, including utilities, on additional office space.
Delk said one proposal discussed by the executive committee was to turn over all the present United Way headquarters to Family Services and move the United Way offices to the new site.
"We think this might be a solution," Delk said at the meeting, "but the executive committee felt it did not want to get involved with the property unless we had someone to take the buildings and back property off our hands.
"We can rent to Mr. Stevens or we can sell him that building and we know we have a use for this [the current headquarters] building," he said. "We can take the monies we might derive from the sale of the buildings and pay for the remodeling and maybe have some dollars left over to add to our capital improvement fund."
Tutoli said Monday night he was unsure when a final decision would be made. But it was mentioned at the meeting that Sheller-Globe was pressing for an answer as quickly as possible.