CCIAOR Board Moves Forward on Updating CCIAOR Building

Our CCIAOR building is now more than 20 years old - yes, time does fly! The building was constructed in 1999 and the organization owns it outright (the mortgage was paid off more than a decade ago). As with any real estate asset, periodic upgrades to the building are needed to maintain value. The last update was six years ago which included some minor re-configuring of offices and an upgrade to the board room.

As such, the Finance Committee and the Board of Directors prioritized a more thorough and planned reorganization of the building layout and included funding for an office renovation in this year’s budget to be paid for out of reserves from the Capital Reserve Fund. In addition, re-configuring to offer a variety of learning formats were included as a priority in our current Association’s Strategic Plan. At their April 15th, 2020 meeting, the Board approved the Finance Committee’s recommendation to approve renovations on the CCIAOR building as was included in the 2020 CCIAOR budget. The motion was to approve $309,338 for the renovation as detailed in CCIAOR’s general contractor, the Conserv Group’s proposal.

This renovation does not change the footprint, only does work on the main floor, and does not change the conference center. It includes bathroom renovations, creating new common space, a new board room, and re-configuring the offices to better support the needs of staff and reflect today’s work environment. You can view the renovation plan by clicking here.

This renovation is to do primarily two things:

Improve the experience of members using the CCIAOR building.

A lot of members filter through our building on a weekly basis (pre-pandemic and we expect after the pandemic as well). There currently exists no waiting area or common area for members to gather before or between classes or to sit down and get some work done before heading off to their next appointment. The renovation will address this issue by creating a new common space, with an adjacent outdoor deck, for members to gather between meetings, events, and classes, continue their conversations with their fellow REALTORS, and to do some quick work before heading off. The intention is not for this to serve as a shared workspace for members, but to be an enjoyable and comfortable place to wait and congregate while attending programs and events at our office. We also plan to move the boardroom next to the new common space which will create a better transition for members coming for meetings.

Reorganize the flow of the staff to be contained on one side of the building.

Right now, the CCIAOR staff is split between both sides of the building. This creates operational inefficiencies and the renovation will address that by putting all staff on one side of the building. In addition, CCIAOR - even prior to the pandemic - has been a pretty remote staff as we utilize independent contractors who are only in the office a few days a week and even have a full-time remote employee, so this office configuration will reflect and be able to adapt to a more remote workforce of the future.

Starting late last year, the plan was for the renovation to happen in late June through early August as that is the time we do not hold many member events, meetings, and classes at our offices anyways. However, the ongoing pandemic has given us the opportunity to move up the renovation a few weeks and we may be adjusting the schedule since the staff is already out of the building. We will keep our members updated on when we expect renovations to start and when our office will be reopened.