By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
After being in the furniture business for more than four decades, Allen Heringhaus wasn’t crazy about selling his store to another company in the same market.
“I had mixed emotions,” he said. “I’ve been in the furniture business for 44 years.”
Then the perfect buyer came along – Work Leads to Independence, formerly called Wood Lane Industries.
“They’re great for the community,” Heringhaus said Friday of the buyer. “They are all about the community. It’s just the right thing.”
The furniture store, at 991 S. Main St., Bowling Green, opened in 1973. The Heringhaus home store in Ottawa, Ohio, opened in 1908. Over the years, Heringhaus sold many items to Wood Lane’s residential program. “We’ve had a great relationship with all the Wood Lane people,” he said.
Work Leads to Independence plans to combine all its operations under one roof in the 18,000 square foot building sitting on 1.25 acres. The site was purchased for $750,000.
“We’re really excited to be in town and on Main Street,” said Vic Gable, CEO of WLI.
The new location will allow the agency to consolidate all its work sites of Laser Cartridge Express, Scanning Solutions, Document Destruction, Wood Lane Industries workshop, plus be the headquarters for its recycling and Community Employment Services.
“We’re going to all be in one building,” Gable said. “And we’re repurposing a building in town.”
Poggemeyer Design Group is working on plans for the building, which Gable hopes is ready to move into by Jan. 1. Modifications will include making a workshop setting in the back and a front showroom for the Laser Cartridge Express business.
“LCE will have a storefront. We get walk-ins,” he said. “We’re hoping being on Main Street will increase that significantly.”
Gable estimated there will be about 75 Wood Lane consumers working in the new site, plus another 50 or so who will use it as their headquarters for their work in the community. Gable envisions the site to also provide a place for educational opportunities for that population.
Meanwhile, Wood Lane is working to find new work opportunities for 41 of the current Wood Lane Industries workers who won’t be moving to the new location.
Wood Lane Superintendent Brent Baer said he has been told that moving to the new location will not be an option for 41 of the workers with the greatest medical and behavioral needs. Baer said the board has no qualms with WLI moving its services – it just has concerns about finding new vocational services for those 41 being left behind.
So the board sent out requests for services to 700 agencies that provide vocational options for people with developmental services. It’s possible the board will find multiple providers to offer work options.
Baer said the board’s goal is to find vocational services that give people work choices.
“We want people to choose where they are going and not be told where to go,” he said.
Friday was the deadline for proposals to be submitted to the Wood County Board of Developmental Disabilities from agencies wanting to offer work options in the Wood Lane Industries building off East Gypsy Lane Road.
The proposals will first be reviewed by an internal committee, and then go before the full board on Sept. 18.
“We are feeling good about the process,” Baer said Friday.
As for Heringhaus, he and his wife, Pamela, have no plans to leave Bowling Green.
“We have feelings for our community,” he said.
And as far as retirement, Heringhaus believes he is ready.
“It’s all good,” he said.
