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Goodwill Industries unveiled its future home Wednesday and plans to move sometime this summer.
Goodwill recently purchased for $5.9 million a vacant building near 72nd Street and Ames Avenue from the Seldin Co. The building will serve as Goodwill’s corporate headquarters.
“It’s a big day for our organization,” Frank McGree, president and chief executive of Goodwill, told around five dozen people at an announcement ceremony.
The building, in Benson Park Plaza, originally was built for a Steve & Barry’s clothing store. However, the national retailer filed for bankruptcy in July 2008, and the store never opened.
The Seldin family donated the land and the parking lot, together valued at around $1.8 million, to Goodwill. The Seldin Co. owns Benson Park Plaza, whose tenants include Baker’s Supermarket, Home Depot, Hancock Fabrics and several restaurants.
Goodwill officials said the organization had outgrown its current location near 41st and Pacific Streets, which Douglas County recently purchased for $2.5 million. Goodwill will remain there — its home for nearly 50 years — through June.
“We needed to be in a position where we could do different things,” McGree said.
“The building that we were in just didn’t allow that. This building is setting the organization up for the next 50 years.”
The 70,000-square-foot facility will house administrative offices and programs. Goodwill trains people for employment and offers jobs to the disabled. A 25,000-square-foot retail and donation center will be included.
Goodwill plans to spend $5.3 million for renovations and furnishings, and a fundraising campaign is under way. The building will be redesigned by RDG Planning & Design in Omaha. Kiewit Building Group will handle construction.
At the ceremony, Mayor Jim Suttle praised Goodwill’s new headquarters and the organization’s effort to make Omaha a better community.
“What a wonderful thing for the northern part of our city,” Suttle said.
Goodwill’s current headquarters in midtown could become the new home of Douglas County’s juvenile court system, the County Health Department and other services.
Contact the writer:
444-3198, chip.olsen@owh.com
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