Scouting for a bigger home



Wanted: 22,000 square feet in Trumbull or northern Mahoning County.
& lt;a href=mailto:slshaulis@vindy.com & gt;By SHERRI L. SHAULIS & lt;/a & gt;
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
NILES -- The Girl Scouts may be willing to trade cookies for space.
"It would be a pretty sweet deal," says a laughing Karen Conklin, executive director for the Lake to River Council.
But officials with the council, which serves girls in Ashtabula, Columbiana, Trumbull and Mahoning counties, say the dire need for a bigger building is no laughing matter.
"We have people in closets here," said Susan E. Paczak, director of training and communications. "There's no conference rooms, no meetings rooms. We are on top of each other."
Current location
About 20 full-time staffers work at the current location of 980 Warren Ave., Niles. The building, Paczak said, was a former office building for RMI Engineering, and was purchased by the council in the early 1970s for $1.
The split-level building has 6,000 square feet of space, including a kitchen. All of 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.
"You can't believe what we had to do to get computers in here," she said. "The building doesn't really support the technology of today."
Conklin said another concern is the building is not handicapped accessible, even though federal regulations do not require it for an office with fewer than 50 employees.
"But when it's your mission to serve all girls everywhere, you want to make everything available." she said.
The women said an ideal location for a move would be in Trumbull or northern Mahoning County, which is centralized for the area the council represents.
"We feel as if we own Route 11," Paczak said. "We serve communities from the lake in the north to the river in the south."
More space needed
Conklin also said the more space another building has, the better. Membership in the Lake to River Council has steadily grown over the years -- it's tripled since 1992 to almost 9,000 girls and 3,000 adults -- and only looks to continue increasing.
In the past, the council would use meeting spaces at area churches and civic organizations, but that's starting to become an expensive solution, Conklin said.
"Everyone is under a budget crunch, and the spaces that used to be available for free aren't anymore," she said. "We understand that, but what we are really desperate for is that big room."
She said the council would like to have a building with 22,000 square feet that would meet the immediate needs, and then some.
"Our council in Canton recently built a new building that's 15,000 square feet," Conklin said. "Even walking through it, I kept thinking 'This still isn't enough room for us.' We need to have room for everything now, and be able to plan for future expansion."
Anyone who knows of a space to fit the council's needs can call Conklin at (330) 652-5877 or (800) 362-9430.
& lt;a href=mailto:slshaulis@vindy.com & gt;slshaulis@vindy.com & lt;/a & gt;

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