ADA S. Mckinley COMMUNITY SERVICES, INC. PURCHASES TWO-STORY

Contact: Roxanne L. Brown FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 312-385-2034 or [email protected] October 14, 2011

ADA S. McKINLEY COMMUNITY SERVICES, INC. PURCHASES TWO-STORY, 20,000 SQUARE-FOOT OFFICE BUILDING IN WEST LOOP

Ada S. McKinley, one of Chicago’s largest community services organizations, recently acquired a new headquarters in the West Loop with the purchase of a 20,000 square-foot, corner structure at 1359 W. Washington Blvd.

The two-story, atrium-style building was purchased by the agency’s property arm,

Samaritas, Inc., and marks the realization of a long-term plan laid out by McKinley Executive

Director George Jones, Jr. and its Board of Directors.

“This acquisition has been a dream in the making for some years, now,” said Jones, who has headed the agency for 16 years. “As a community service organization that has been a fixture in Chicago for almost 95 years, it was high time for Ada S. McKinley to have a permanent, administrative home.”

The former home of the Chicago Patrolmen’s International Federal Credit Union—now the permanent home of McKinley’s administrative offices—houses 26 employees, including the organization’s executive director and executive officers, as well as Development, Financial,

Human Resources, Information Technology, Property Management and Quality Assurance.

The post-modern structure, which makes extensive use of skylights to bring light to interior space, originally included an interior roof deck off a second floor lunchroom. The building was renovated slightly to convert a credit union teller lane into additional office space and the banking lobby into a sweeping, two-story conference room. Additional offices and file storage rooms were added on the second floor.

McKinley’s administrative offices were previously located at 725 S. Wells St. in a first- floor suite of offices that the agency occupied for 21 years.

McKinley serves more than 15,000 people each year at 38 program sites located throughout the West and South sides of Chicago. Services are provided within three major divisions:

Behavioral Health and Clinical Services, Child Development and Youth Services and

Employment and Community Support Services.

Services rendered daily include: tutoring, mentoring and college placement for disadvantaged youth, foster care, residential, youth and family counseling, employment training and placement, special and alternative schooling, daycare, and after-school and senior-care.

Ada S. McKinley is driven by its mission to serve the most vulnerable individuals and communities in the Chicago area. The organization’s creed is “changing lives and strengthening communities” and its mission is to serve those who because of disabilities or other limiting conditions need help in pursuing paths leading to healthy, productive and fulfilling lives.

The organization was founded as a settlement house in 1919 by Ada Sophia McKinley, a schoolteacher and social reformer, who saw the need to assist veterans returning from World

War I and blacks migrating from the South.

Ada S. McKinley was recently reaccredited by the Council on Accreditation (COA). The agency would not be in a position to provide behavioral health and child welfare services in the

State of Illinois without the essential accreditation of the COA.

Note: The full address for Ada S. McKinley Community Services is 1359 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Illinois 60607. Our telephone numbers remain the same.

Editors Note : A J-PEG image of the exterior of the building is available upon request.