The Kitchen to break ground on $4M campus

Amid its search for a new CEO, The Kitchen Inc. is scheduled to break ground June 8 on a portion of its new $4 million campus.

The nonprofit — officials of which last month declined to give a reason for nine-year CEO Rorie Orgeron’s exit —  is constructing two buildings just north of Glenstone Avenue and Chestnut Expressway. Attempts to reach Orgeron have been unsuccessful.

This week’s groundbreaking ceremony is for its homeless shelter comprising 14 apartments, including one for respite care. Kitchen Community Development Manager Roz Palmer said the shelter has a targeted completion date next spring. Nonprofit officials will work with shelter residents to move them to permanent housing within 90 days.

Officials are expected to break ground later this summer on a second building for staff at 730 N. Glenstone Ave. The structure is designed with office space for 26 case managers and the organization’s executive, human resources, accounting and development staff members. Designed by Ireland Architects Inc. with work to be done by Base Construction, the entire 12,800-square-foot campus should wrap by summer 2018, Palmer said.

Fundraising efforts are ongoing. Palmer said the nonprofit has raised 90 percent of the $4 million price tag.

That’s a jump from 77 percent in February, when The Kitchen penned a deal to sell its seven-building, 106,000-square-foot campus on Commercial Street to Historic Commercial Developments LLC for undisclosed terms.

In the deal, Historic Commercial Developments agreed to lease four buildings to The Kitchen to house its operations until the new campus is finished.

Historic Commercial Developments’ plans for the C-Street campus, including the shuttered Missouri Hotel, are a mixed-use development for residential and commercial tenants.