The Salvation Army is moving its Kentucky and Tennessee Division from Downtown Louisville to the East End later this year.
The charitable organization purchased a 35,092-square-foot office building at 2110 High Wickham Place from AGRI Group LLC for $7.5 million.
Eric Short, the Salvation Army's divisional director of communications and marketing, said the organization will move its divisional headquarters from 216 W. Chestnut St. to the new building in late September.
The sale of the East End building was handled by Justin Baker, a founding partner and principal broker for TRIO Commercial Property Group, and the deal closed on July 12.
Short said there will be some minor renovations before the Kentucky and Tennessee Division staff move into the new building, but he did not know the estimated cost of those renovations.
"We just closed on the building a couple of weeks ago and we do expect to be in there by the end of September," Short said. "That's tentative. Of course, we are doing a few upgrades on the new building and stuff. We're having we're planning a building dedication ceremony in early February.
"The reason why there is that gap is that Christmastime is basically our busiest time. And so, we want to leave that time and not complicate things with having a building dedication during those couple of months."
The divisional headquarters is an administrative office that serves as a central hub for support services the Salvation Army offers across Kentucky and Tennessee. The employees in the headquarters deal with issues like property management, community relations, development work and human resources.
Short said the Salvation Army has been in located on the Chestnut Street property for 100 years, but Its current facility was built in the 1970s and no longer fits the organization's needs.
"It requires a lot of maintenance and upgrades to accommodate the services that we provide across Kentucky and Tennessee adequately," Short explained. "We also need more office space, we've outgrown our current location. Even if we did a lot of the maintenance and upgrades that the current building needs, it still wouldn't give us additional office space. That's really the reason for the move."
Short was not sure of the number of employees that would be impacted by the move, but he said it was less than 50 people. He also said there will be no client services impacted by the move.
"Our client focused services are going to continue without any disruption at our local area command, which is located at 911 S. Brook St.," Short said. "That's the old Male High School campus. That includes the emergency shelter, the transitional housing, the cafe and more. That's still gonna be there."
