Note: The version of this article in the Sept. 17 print edition of the Record incorrectly stated that all labor on the Chamber office renovation project was done by volunteers. The article has been updated with the correct information below.
Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce staff are no strangers to ribbon cuttings. A few months ago, however, instead of someone else’s business opening, they got to celebrate one marking the completion of their own new headquarters.
The new Chamber office, located at 1000 Warrenton Shoppes Ste 11 next to the Warrenton License Office, officially opened for business June 15.
“We had been working on that project for years, because as a board we wanted to bring a brick-and-mortar to the community, and for the community to be able to come in and use that building too,” said Chamber President Robin Kuhlmann.
“So the concept has been three years in the making, and we started construction, bids and all that, mid-last year.”
The cost of renovations to the new space was close to $130,000, according to Director of Chamber Operations Christine Hedding, with contractors on the project including Key Living Homes, BNB Signs & Graphics, Logipops LLC, The Blind Broker of St. Louis, Citywide Alarms and IntegriTel. Chamber members also spent just over 130 volunteer hours cleaning, assembling furniture, and doing other work on the project.
A percentage of revenue from the license office next door, which the Chamber operates through a contract with the state, goes into a community reinvestment fund. This covered the cost of the renovation, and continues to pay for the Chamber’s ongoing operations. That’s not all that the fund goes toward, however.
“When it’s a community reinvestment fund, it goes back to the entire community, not just the Chamber part of the community,” Hedding said.
The best way the Chamber could think of to use the funds in a way that benefited the broader community was to open its space for business use by whoever has a need for it, she said, regardless of whether they are Chamber members.
Kuhlmann added that businesses that are not currently Chamber members may end up wanting to join after using the reservable space there and seeing what the organization has to offer.
“The chambers themselves are usually a business connection, and we felt like that was a great way to offer the business connection,” Kuhlmann said.
The new Chamber office features a 15-foot by 30-foot conference room, equipped with three television monitors, along with three 8-by-10-foot meeting rooms that each have a TV monitor. All these spaces can be reserved free of charge by community members, whether or not they are part of the Chamber.
The conference room has a capacity of 26 people, and TV monitors in all three smaller meeting rooms have HDMI ports to connect laptops, as well as landline phones with speakerphone capability. All tables in the smaller rooms are mobile, so they can be arranged differently as needed, and one of the meeting rooms also has four smaller desks and rolling chairs.
While space at the Chamber office is not open to just anyone coming in off the street without a reservation, those who can reserve space there include local high school students.
“When they get done at school they can come here for free wi-fi and sit and do their homework here on their laptops,” Hedding said.
The Chamber staff know firsthand the value that the new reservable spaces will bring to the community, because before their new office opened a few months ago, they did not have any official physical location for the organization.
While the Chamber still hosted events and membership meetings, the director previously worked from home, Kuhlmann said.
“The need just came where we needed more community involvement. We wanted to expand, so in order to add staff and things we needed a building to do that in,” she said.
“Our memberships are expanding,” she added, and the Chamber Board saw “just the need with the different retailers and businesses coming into this community coming to us and asking for different networking opportunities and things.”
Kuhlmann and Hedding noted that many small business owners in town operate their businesses out of their homes.
“And they don’t have a safe place to meet,” Hedding said. “You’re inviting strangers into your home to meet you, and you’re inviting people that you wouldn’t necessarily let into your everyday life, or you’re having to go and find a coffee shop, which we didn’t really have. There was no place to go and just sit down and have a cup of coffee with anybody for a long time.”
Kuhlmann gave the example of a real estate agent needing a place to go with a client to sign contracts.
“And they don’t want to go back to their office or they don’t have space or something, so this offers that avenue,” she said, “and there’s not a lot of spaces that are just open to the public, besides sitting at McDonald’s, or something to that effect, so this is a business environment to be able to conduct business.”
Members of the public can also reserve space at the Chamber office on weekends or outside of regular business hours, even on short notice if needed, Hedding said, though most people who use the space reserve it further ahead of time, especially if doing so regularly.
“If somebody has to come here after hours, they can just call the chamber cell phone and I can give them access, because I have cameras that are showing when they’re coming in and out. They just call me and I can open up the room remotely if it’s an emergency,” she said.
“Usually they make a reservation ahead of time for such a big space, but we have the ability to just hit the buttons on a phone and it opens up the building so that somebody can get in.”
Looking ahead, Kuhlmann said, Chamber leadership are still discussing additional uses for their new space, including different kinds of networking events or training sessions.
For more information about the Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce or reserving space at its new office, visit warrentoncoc.com or call 636-456-2530.
