Girl Scout council shops for new headquarters

NILES -- Employees at the Girl Scouts of Lake to River Council on Warren Avenue never realized there were so many real estate agents in the area.
"There's been about 67 phone calls from realtors ready to help us find the perfect spot," said Susan Paczak, director of training and communications for the group. "They call and tell us, 'Boy, have I got a location for you.'"
The not-for-profit council announced last month the need to find a bigger building in the Mahoning Valley to make sure they are handicap-accessible and have enough space for conference and meeting rooms.
The Girl Scouts have already hung a For Sale sign on their building, Paczak said.
The group owns the building and the surrounding land. There have been no solid offers yet, but officials are optimistic.
"The sale of this building makes the whole idea of packing and moving and expanding possible," Paczak said.
What group wants
Ideally, the group would like to find someone willing to donate land or a building of at least 22,000 square feet in northern Mahoning or Trumbull County, Paczak said.
Another leading option is finding a reasonably priced site.
If for some reason the current location does not do well on the open market, she said, the organization may reconsider its options.
"Our board may look at what we have here and maybe consider an addition to give us some conference rooms and meeting space," she said.
"Ideally though, we'd like to sell this and use that as seed money for a down payment; use it as an investment on another building. In the meantime, we need to be practical."
About 20 full-time staffers work at the offices at 980 Warren Ave., a former office building for RMI Engineering the council bought in the early 1970s for $1.
The split-level building has 6,000 square feet, including a kitchen. All the available conference rooms have been turned into office space, and the age of the building has made it difficult to keep up with changing technology, Paczak said.