Traffic slowed on Main Street early Friday for Evergreen Elm’s office furniture as it was wheeled and carried across the road by staff and movers to its new offices at 50 Elm St.
Deborah Price, executive director of Evergreen Elm, said the move from the agency’s former third-floor offices across the street at PNC Bank to new front offices in the CNB bank building at 50 Main St. would take most of the day.
Taking a break from directing movers where to place her desk in her front corner office, Price said the move had been planned for months. Facilitating the move was Southern Tier Moving of Olean, N.Y., who opted to carry the furniture the short distance to its new home.
“We want to emphasize that this now gives us room for all of our (office) people that had been previously housed at 8 Elm St.,” she said of the large group home structure that accidentally burned last spring. “We just want to say we had outgrown our space” at PNC.
Price said the agency, which is subleasing the property from CNB, has new offices that will provide parking in the back of CNB, as well as additional parking space at the Super User Technologies building, also known as the old post office, on East Corydon Street.
“This building is really user-friendly to our clients because they can walk right in the front door,” Price said of the ground-floor offices. She said the previous third-floor offices were more of a challenge for clients, even with an elevator.
The new office has a large conference room that can double for training space, a handicapped-accessible restroom and a kitchenette shared with the PathStone nonprofit agency which rents a smaller office in the facility.
Barb Caskey, receptionist and secretary for the agency, will be the first employee clients and visitors see at the new office. She expects the office will be operational by Monday.
“It looks very professional here,” Caskey remarked. “Everything is coming together really well. We’ve had our (internet) people in today and everybody has been very helpful.”
Aside from the change of address, the agency will continue to have the same phone number.
On a related note, Price said the agency continues to work on building plans for a new group home at 8 Elm St., but noted groundbreaking likely won’t take place until the spring of 2017.
“We’re continuing to work on the architectural drawings and permits,” Price said.
The new home, expected to house between 12 and 14 people, will be designed by Bradford architect Curt Wallace of C.J. Wallace Engineering, LLC. The contractor selected for the work is Hennard Construction of Bradford.
Eleven displaced residents of the home currently live in homes provided by the Bradford City Housing Authority.
