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Building eyed for nonprofits
Foundation looking at Dover structure for use by charities
  
By Bruce Pringle
Delaware State News

   DOVER — The Greater Dover Foundation hopes to buy the former Wachovia Bank building at Loockerman and Bradford streets and make it a center for nonprofit organizations, the foundation’s executive director said Tuesday.
   The director, Shelly S. Cecchett, said the foundation would renovate the building — once home to the Delaware Trust Co. — and make its headquarters there. Remaining offices would be occupied by other nonprofits, which would pay rents priced below market rates. “ We are going to create a community service building,” Ms. Cecchett said. “Each (organization there) would have its own office but would share conference and kitchen areas.” By paying discount-priced rents, the organizations will devote “less money toward op­erating cost and more to bettering our community,” she said.
   The proposal comes at a time when many nonprofits report diminished funding due to the recession.
   Completion of the purchase, Ms. Cecchett said, is contingent on obtaining a conditional-use zoning permit from the city to carry out the project. A hearing date on the matter has yet to be announced.
She said the building is owned by 101 West Loockerman LLC, represented by local developer L.D. Shank.
   Among organizations con­tacted as potential tenants, Ms. Cecchett said, are Read-Aloud Delaware, Delaware Community Foundation and the Greater Dover Committee.
   The Greater Dover Committee founded the Greater Dover Foundation in 1992 as an organization devoted to financially supporting nonprofits and public institutions.
   The foundation describes its funding of other groups as “flexible, able to direct grant making to new issues or opportunities as they arise. The one constant is that the income generated by the Greater Dover Foundation will stay in the Dover area.”
   The foundation’s recipients have included Senior Olympics, Girls Inc., Dover Little League, Real-Aloud Delaware, Delaware Adolescent Program Inc., the Mom’s House day care center and Dover’s Fourth of July celebration.
   The foundation lists scores of donors who have provided from $1 to $10,000 or more toward its funding efforts.
   Staff writer Bruce Pringle can be reached at 741-8233 or bpringle@newszap.com.

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