EUGENE, Ore. (KMTR) -- After 30 years in a small, cramped west Eugene warehouse, St. Vincent de Paul is branching out to relocated its headquarters to a new location for program staff and more. St. Vincent de Paul just finalized a deal to lease out the old BLM buildings on Chad Drive in north Eugene.
The non-profit is planning on moving all of its administrative offices and other services to the new buildings by July 1st, 2012. The building will undergo some remodeling work before and during the move.
While many other businesses and non-profits have struggled, St. Vincent de Paul says it has thrived through the recession due to its focus on recycling and repurposing items for secondhand use.
Now, St. Vinnie's says it is ready to invest in its own business.
St. Vincent de Paul's current headquarters on Seneca Street in west Eugene is more than crammed, with very little space for any additional growth in services, no matter the demand.
Inside, along with offices, the 6,000 square foot facility is also home to a book reprocessing operation, clothing sorting and resale, appliance refurbishing, pillow, plastic and metal recycling.
The new location should allow for St. Vinnie's to expand its services. For example, the non-profit's book reprocessing facility should be able to add capacity. The operation either resells books at Thrift Stores resells or recycles them by turning the books into wood pulp to create new paper products.
With the new space on Chad Drive, St. Vinnie's says it will be able to go from processing about 150 tons of books per month, to 300 to 400 tons of books per month.
“The new space allows us to not only create jobs and employment for ourselves, but to demonstrate to the community how we actually do all of this,” says Terry McDonald, Executive Director of St. Vincent de Paul.
“So there's going to be an interpretive center there that will show you what is possible out of the waste stream, where this stuff comes from, where it goes, and how you can indeed turn it in to revenue,” says McDonald.
St. Vincent de Paul says it hopes to streamline manufacturing, processing and distribution at the Chad Drive location. The campus has two buildings and multiple loading bays. By comparison, the current Seneca facility only has 6,000 square feet of space and one loading bay. The new facility has around 60,000 square feet of space and multiple loading bays.
