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Howard Hanna renovates Poland office
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.The Howard Hanna office at 100 West McKinley Way hosted its grand unveiling after more than $100,000 in renovations that started Jan. 1.
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Neighbors | Submitted.Howard Hanna employees gathered around as managing broker Alicia Kosec cut the ribbon for the office's grand unveiling after extensive renovations.
By TIM CLEVELAND
After an extensive remodeling that cost more than $100,000, the Howard Hanna real estate office located at 100 West McKinley Way hosted its grand unveiling on Sept. 15.
“We wanted to wait until the roof was put on,” managing broker Alicia Kosec said. “We have internal contractors that build throughout our footprint and probably renovate four offices per year.”
The main part of the renovation was from Jan. 1 until March 31, with cosmetic work done at the end of April and the new roof being put on in August.
The office remained open except for one day when the new green carpet was laid down.
In addition to the roof and carpet, the renovation included new paint, wallpaper, desks, windows, blinds, the bathrooms were completely remodeled, six different small rooms were opened up into one large room where the agents work and where their Tuesday meetings take place.
It was the first remodel of the office since Howard Hanna purchased the office from Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate in the late 1980s, becoming the first Howard Hanna office in Ohio.
“We don’t actually own the office, but because we do so much business in Poland and the neighboring communities, we just felt that to give our agents a state of the art facility, we needed to remodel,” Kosec said. “There used to be a lot of tin desks, a lot of partitions. We wanted to open things up and bring it into the new century.”
Howard Hanna has offices in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, New York, West Virginia and Maryland. The company has 170 offices in total and employs 5,400 realtors. The Poland office has a full-time managing broker, full-time loan officer, full-time administrative assistant, plus about 55 working full-time real estate agents. It is the fourth-largest independent brokerage in the United States, No. 1 in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Kosec said the renovations have made her more enthusiastic about her job.
“You just want to come into work,” she said. “I love coming into work every day. I didn’t used to like it. We also went rough a huge throwaway. We threw away stuff from the ‘70s. We probably got rid of eight dumpsters full of stuff. We really streamlined the whole operation. It forced us to go through every single thing we had.”