Red Cross Chapter Buys New Office
While declining donations are forcing some nonprofit agencies to cut back or shut down, the Ventura County Chapter of American Red Cross has been able to buy a spacious building for its new headquarters.
The agency moved last week into its new home, a single-story office building at 2355 Portola Road in Ventura.
Although the 8,000-square-foot building is about a third larger than the chapter’s old office on Santa Clara Avenue in Ventura, the agency is saving money at the new quarters, Executive Director Brian Bolton said.
Bolton said the monthly mortgage on the Portola Road building is about half the monthly rent payment for the old office. “We needed to do something to stop renting,” he said.
The agency got a low mortgage payment by paying $300,000 down on the building, which had a total price of $450,000. The down payment funds came from reserves and from the chapter’s impending sale of a small building it owns adjoining the old Santa Clara office.
The chapter has more room now to conduct its classes on AIDS education, cardiopulmonary resuscitation and other health-and-safety topics. About 17,000 people took such classes through the chapter last year, Bolton said.
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