STEUBENVILLE - The Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce Building at 630 Market St. is getting a freshening in its appearance in anticipation of an open house for prospective occupants to be held after Labor Day.
Alex Marshall, incoming chamber chairman, said Gary Cain of Cain Realtors and Auctioneers is coordinating the leasing opportunities for the chamber of commerce. The chamber has been trying to sell the building for several months, but officials have decided to seek new tenants for the building, once home to not only the chamber but professional offices and nonprofit charitable organizations.
"We've decided to focus on the leasing of the building for a professional office complex. The focus is to bring new tenants into the building," Marshall said. "We will be offering an extremely competitive rate per square foot to existing or new businesses."
Marshall said the chamber is considering various concepts of shared office services, from secretarial to office equipment use as part of the leasing.
Marshall said there is 12,000-square feet available in various office sizes and the building can be further subdivided.
Volunteers prepared the building for painting last week and painted exterior walls on Tuesday. Work also will be donated to improve the landscaping around the building.
"It's volunteers coming together to improve the exterior appearance of the chamber building," said Gary Folden, interim chamber president. "Once we got the word out that we wanted to do this, I didn't even have to ask. People were coming forward."
General Rental and M&M Hardware donated equipment and supplies and World Radio Telecommunications and its owner, David E. Hindman, donated the services of Blackburn Painting and Pressure Cleaning.
Work to come includes landscaping by Total Lawn Care with plants donated by DiGregory's Greenhouse and Garden Center, as well as exterior sign work by Signs Unlimited. Also volunteering and donating are the Herald-Star and RSV Inc.
Russell Hunt, owner of Total Lawn Care, said he believes it was something he owed to the community to get involved.
"The chamber is what got me started. To give back, to me is really important. I've been lucky. I've been blessed. I've been fortunate," he said.
Folden said the chamber members believe it's important to get the building looking better.
"It's an improvement to the atmosphere of downtown Steubenville, and we hope it sets an example, that provides an impetus to see more pride in building appearance," he said.
(Giannamore can be reached at pgiannamore@heraldstaronline.com.)
