The historic dining hall at Camp Tuckahoe is a bustling and noisy place these days, as the building is rapidly being transformed into our new service center.
While the initial stages of the work involved a lot of demolition, framing up walls, and roughing in wiring, drain lines, and plumbing, we’re now at a point where things begin to take shape. The spray foam insulation has been applied on the office level of the building. With that nearly done, drywall installation is moving along quickly, and you can begin to see what the building will look like in finished form.
The lower level of the building has been opened up to reveal a large open space. This space will house the Tuckahoe Scout Shop, which Scouting America Outfitters (National) will operate.
While it’s exciting to see all this progress, much must be done before the building is ready for us to take occupancy in late spring. I’ve included a photo gallery at the bottom of this article to give everyone an inside look at how things are coming.
Mechanicsburg Office Sold
The Council has agreed to sell the Mechanicsburg Service Center to the Pennsylvania School Board Association Trust for $1.705 million. PASB is our neighbor on Bent Creek Boulevard, and acquiring our current headquarters will provide PASB with additional space in a campus setting.
The sale is expected to close by June 3, so we will intensify our planning for moving to our new Tuckahoe headquarters in the weeks ahead.
While we don’t know the exact date yet when our new building will be ready, it’s not too early to let everyone know that there will need to be a transition period, lasting a few weeks, when the Scout Shop and our office will be closed as we relocate from one building to another. We’ll provide as much advance notice as possible so everyone can plan accordingly, especially for any purchases from the Scout Shop.
As many of our Scouting family will recall, we began a process a few years ago to consolidate our operations into a single service center to reduce our operating costs and rebuild our council’s financial strength after making our $2.7 million contribution to help resolve the Boy Scouts of America’s bankruptcy.
We have made good progress in working through that plan, selling the York Service Center for $1.2 million last May, preserving 906 acres at Tuckahoe through a $2.265 million sale to the Central PA Conservancy in November, and renovating the historic dining hall at Tuckahoe as our new service center. We secured more than $1.5 million in state grants for the new service center renovations and paid off the $1.5 million loan we took out to contribute to resolving the BSA’s bankruptcy.
I’ll do my best over the next few months to provide more frequent updates on our progress at the Tuckahoe Service Center so everyone can see how things are progressing and the dates for our move.
Yours in Scouting,
Ron Gardner
Scout Executive & CEO
