Half Moon Bay Review sells a building, gets a facelift

After selling the smaller of the two buildings on Kelly Avenue in Half Moon Bay, the Review was able to put a little of that money back into the main building by way of a remodel to make room for the employees who had been working in the second building.

That building was sold in June, but the permitting process to begin the remodel took three months. The project began in September and was completed for the most part by the end of October.

One difficulty in obtaining a permit was due to the fact that the building the company kept, owned by the Review since the 1920s, was a registered historic building. The building had also been built right up to the property line on all sides, so there was no way to build out to get additional space.

Another problem we encountered was that once we began any kind of remodel, we were obligated to make the building compliant to current Americans with Disability Act requirements. This meant including ramp access into the building as well as enlarging the bathroom and doorways into the building and offices.

After going back to the drawing board more times than I’d like to remember, we came up with a plan that utilized existing wasted space in the building and were able to add a lunchroom/conference room, a business office and new ADA-compliant bathroom.

We did this by tearing out the old darkrooms, which hadn’t been used as darkrooms since the late 90s, and also by using the area in the back of the building to enlarge the bathroom and create a small business office.

Because we were on the property line, no windows could be added because of the fire code. We got around this by putting in operational skylights in both the lunchroom and business office.

The old, existing bathroom had to be completely torn out and rebuilt. The foundation had rotted through and the entire bathroom was leaning dangerously due to a sinkhole from a longstanding water leak and drainage problem.

In addition to the repaired bathroom, new lunchroom and business office, other improvements included new bamboo floors, mahogany stain for the walls, wiring (electrical, phone, computer) untapped from the walls and put out of sight, a new heater, lighting, windows and back entry.

While the basic floor plan remains the same, we’ve added five employees and made the whole office more open — no cubicles or private offices besides the lunchroom/conference room, which has full glass doors, like all the other doors in the building.

This openness helps to create an atmosphere where communication becomes a natural flow, and for the most part, the right hand knows what the left hand is doing.

The other big plus is that we have been able to shave $36,000 a year in expenses by downsizing into one building.

Another plus was that because space became a huge consideration for all of us, it forced us to look at all our “stuff” and various procedures and become more efficient. We were forced to start sending electronic tear sheets (something we’ve wanted to do for a long time) just because there was no longer room to store them. This has saved us in postage and manila envelopes, and the transition was virtually seamless.

We also found out we could run Vision Data on our Mac computers, and were able to create space on desks that used to house two different computer systems.

We are working out other storage problems as they come up, and are looking forward to starting out 2010 and a lean, clean newspaper machine.

Debra Godshall, publisher