A major move doesn’t usually have people doing cartwheels, but don’t tell that to Moraga-Orinda Fire District Board President Craig Jorgens.
“I guess that would be unprofessional,” he said.
But Jorgens and most of the MOFD staff say they are thrilled about moving into a new administrative building at 1150 Moraga Way, just south of the Moraga Country Club.
In real estate, they say location is everything. The location – just a block from the training facility and administration building at Station 41 – is fittingly a former Mason-McDuffie office.
The best thing about the building is that the district was able to pay the $3.7 million price tag in cash.
The genesis for the purchase of the building is the refurbishment of Station 41 and training facility, located at 1284 Moraga Way, and the demolition of the adjacent administration building.
“At first we were just looking to rent some space in Orinda,” Jorgens said. “But office space was renting for around $400 per square foot. That would have been $225,000 a month. That just wasn’t feasible.”
Then he and other directors got the idea to buy a building.
“For the last four years or so we’ve been making some savvy investments with our capital funds,” Jorgens said. “When we saw the new building, so close to Station 41 and our training facility, it seemed like buying the building with cash was a no-brainer.”
Jorgens said another advantage of the building is that it is two-story, so they can rent out the bottom floor for more revenue. MOFD will use the top floor, which is ADA-compliant and offers something more than the former building: space.
“We’ve had to have departments sharing space,” he said, such as the finance department and the human resources department, which had to swap out days working in the office.
“We are also inheriting all the office furniture, with the exception of chairs,” Jorgens said. “It’s all beautiful.”
MOFD Board Member Mike Roemer agrees that the staff will be happy to be reunited, and one other major advantage of the new 9,516 square-foot space, and on just over a half-acre of land: it is large enough to have its own large room for district board meetings.
“We won’t have to rent space in Orinda for our meetings,” Roemer said.
He agrees with Jorgens that it was savvy investing that allowed the district to build up its cash reserves, allowing the district to not only purchase the new fire administration building but to also attract and hire more firefighters, purchase a new ambulance and hire more staff, including a Prescribed Burn Specialist, who not only leads the important efforts in Orinda and Moraga, but is also “lent out” to neighboring districts to help develop their own prescribed burns.
Jorgens said that when he joined the board 10 years ago, it would have been impossible to make those kinds of moves, but with a more business-minded outlook, and smart investing, the board’s budget is much more conducive to improvements.
“It’s much more valuable to the residents – the taxpayers – as well as to our firefighters and staff. We can provide better services,” he said.
Such services include the free gutter guards and screens program.
“Many people don’t know about those programs, but we are able to provide those to residents of the district,” Jorgens said.
Roemer credits many of the agency’s improvements to strong chemistry on the board.
“Even in closed session, almost all our votes are unanimous,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t discord, but usually we can talk it out calmly and sometimes change our minds.”
The sale, with a short two-month escrow, closed on June 10. Jorgens said it would take roughly three weeks to make the move. The location of July and future board meetings will be posted online at www.mofd.org.
