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BILL COATSThe Florida headquarters staff, which helps local offices manage financial, legal and personnel functions, is getting a new building on Van Dyke Road.
LUTZ - The last time the Salvation Army moved its Florida headquarters, it chose a hospital for unwed mothers, which the agency had closed, on the shore of Carrollwood's Lake Ellen.
"I can still see the hospital corridors," said Steve Dick, the charity's Florida director of development.
Now, nearly a quarter century later, the headquarters staff plans to move into a new home custom-designed for its 130 officers and employees, a white 100,000-square-foot office building on Van Dyke Road.
"We hope to be there for the next 30 years," Dick said.
Dick said the third floor, the highest, will be used only for storage initially.
"That'll be an eventual expansion for the future," he said.
Scherer Construction & Engineering, a St. Petersburg designer and builder, expects to finish the building in March, said project manager Jorge Capote. The Salvation Army plans to move there in April, Dick said.
He said the project will cost more than $8-million, including the 10-acre site east of Lake Carlton Arms apartments.
None of that money comes from general donations to the Salvation Army, Dick said. Instead, it comes from a reserve account of donations specified for construction, plus proceeds from an eventual sale of the Lake Ellen property, he said.
Local Salvation Army offices dispense a variety of "cradle to grave" social services to the needy, plus the spiritual care suggested by "Salvation." In contrast, the headquarters is almost wholly administrative. It oversees 52 local offices serving all 67 of Florida's counties, Dick said. Headquarters staffers help the local offices manage financial, legal, personnel and other business functions and train their staffs.
Dick said a consultant studied the north Hillsborough area as the charity sought a new location. The Van Dyke Road site was picked partly because of its accessibility, Dick said. It's a mile from the Suncoast Parkway and within two miles of N Dale Mabry Highway.
The new building will enlarge the headquarters floor space to 100,000 square feet from the current 34,000 square feet.
"We've run out of space, and we can't expand here," Dick said. "With this building, we've turned bathrooms into offices and we've turned closets into offices."
From the outside, the new building looks like a solid white box with blue tinted windows. But it's actually a square surrounding an open-air patio in the center.
As befits a charity, the building has been designed frugally, said Capote, the project manager.
"It's really a pleasure to work with them," he said. "They value keeping things nice, but simple."
- Bill Coats can be reached at 813 269-5309 or coats@sptimes.com