Sheltered Workshop purchases old Jostens building

Porterville Sheltered Workshop has taken a huge step toward future expansion with the purchase of the 92,000-square-foot old Jostens building at 194 W. Poplar Ave. behind Home Depot.

For right now, the only immediate plans are to move the cramped administrative offices at the West Olive Avenue site to the building and continue to lease approximately 80,000 s.f. of the building to Foster Farms that has been using that space for storage.

Eventually, the warehouse could be used for new service lines, but those plans are still in the discussion stage.

“It gives us the opportunity to expand here,” said PSW executive director John Nash this week. Plans are to expand the thrift shop, copy center and other activities at the Olive Avenue site that has been home to the Workshop since 1976.

Nash said the nonprofit organization that provides training and employment opportunities to those with developmental disabilities, simply had outgrown the Olive Avenue site.

“There’s been on-and-off discussions for several years, just because we’re cramped,” said Nash, adding that the Olive Avenue site really lends itself to a retail operation and they hope to expand that retail segment of the organization.

PSW has nearly 900 clients and grew by 90 clients in the past year alone.

While discussions had been ongoing, it was only recently that the Jostens building became available and Nash said the price was too good to pass up. The plant served as Jostens for 30 years, but the company closed the plant in 1997, moving its operations to Tennessee and eliminating the 200 jobs at the local plant that produced graduation announcements.

The building had been owned by investors and the warehouse has been leased to Foster Farms. Nash said the lease with Foster Farms continues and PSW has no immediate plans to use the warehouse. After the deal was completed, the sellers “made a donation to use because of what we do,” said Nash.

However, renovation of the property landscaping and the offices could begin this spring and the approximately 25 administrative workers for PSW, including Nash, could be moving to the site by the end of this year.

Eventually, Nash sees the company consolidating further, utilizing the warehouse of the plant, and hopefully expand its business services. As one of its business services, PSW handles all of the inserting for the Porterville Recorder.

Saying the state continues to cut its funding for organizations like PSW, “the only opportunity we have is to expand what we do.”

However, “We are not going to do anything immediate. We just want the offices. The rest is possibilities,” he said.

PSW has five sites and two satellite sites, including one in Hanford. Its transportation and business services are done out of a building at the Porterville Airport and its training center is on E Street next door to the Jostens site.

The big plans right now are to improve and expand the retail operation at the West Olive site. Nash said most are not aware they sell used books at the thrift store, but last year they sold 30,000 books. He said they are looking at expanding the thrift store, offering more boutique items and even some high-dollar items.

“We have some high-end donations,” he said.

In light of the expected growth coming from the construction of the new courthouse and the need for services such as copying, Nash said the organization is looking at expanding its copy services at the West Olive site. He said they are also studying the possibility of adding a cafe or some other form of restaurant or snack bar.

Nash said the new facility gives the organization a lot of possibilities. “The economy has put us in a situation to think short-term. We wan to look long-term,” he said.

“If you have facilities where you have flexibilities, then you can look at options,” he added.

Despite the economy and state funding cutbacks, Nash said PSW is in good shape.