By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
Though you won’t see education, training, and employment on the official sign or logo for the Trillium Event Center, those three words are the driving force behind a new project.
The word trillium comes from a three-petal flower that is native to the area. It is now also a part of the official name and logo of the Trillium Event Center, the site of the former county home. Local artist Sandy Laipply designed the logo for the event center, which right now features Trillium in a script font started by a three-petal flower in the shape of a T.
“We chose it because the three petals stand for what we think this is mainly about, and that is education, training and employment,” said Dick Gervais, who has taken a leading role in putting all the parts of the Trillium puzzle together. Gervais is also supervisor of food and facilities at the Crawford County Board of Developmental Disabilities.
The idea for an event center first came about when the Crawford County Board of Developmental Disabilities and its former superintendent Chuck Frobrose had expressed interest in the former county home after it sat empty for a number of years.
“The inspiration behind the whole thing – and this is the most important piece of the whole thing – is it’s a training site for people with disabilities,” Gervais said.
Trillium Event Center will operate much like the Delectables Concession Stand at Aumiller Park but on a much bigger scale.
“With job coaching, people with disabilities will come in here and set up for cooking school, weddings, board meetings – whatever it’s rented out for,” Gervais said. “The kicker is that when it’s all over at the end of the night they’ll clean it up and put it away. That’s part of what a lot of places can’t do. We will be allowing for work experience for our individuals.”
Gervais said it is their hope that those with disabilities will be able to take that training and become direct hires for the event center or they will be able to find similar work out in the community.
“The community employment department here is constantly trying to develop jobs and work with people in the community to join together with providing training sites that can lead to permanent employment,” Gervais added.
The transformation from county home to the Trillium Event Center has already begun. The front of the building has been painted a new color, though Gervais wasn’t certain that specific coral color would stay. An awning will be installed at the front door with the Trillium logo front and center and a large sign will be installed near the side of the road. Gervais said they hope to also development a larger parking area at the front of the building though some kind of retention pond will also have to be installed.
Vans from local companies have been parked in the front parking lot as duct and electrical work began. Insulation hanged from the ceiling and hammers could be heard banging against solid structures as Gervais toured the building. The nurse’s station has been demolished and floors are ready to be ripped up.
Big plans are in store for the place. Carpet will be installed below, acoustic tiles will go in above, and bid screen TVs will hang from the walls. A portable 20-feet-b- 20-feet dance floor will be available and renters will have room for DJs and bands. The building will also have Internet, WiFi availability, and a state-of-the-art sound system.
The main banquet hall will be able to hold between 250 and 280 people, depending on the table setting selected.
“The idea then was to open it up for a sit down meal with round tables,” Gervais said.
There will be two remodeled restrooms towards the front of the banquet hall. The former restrooms, which had been located at the back of the main room and were not big enough to service the number of people expected to be present during events, were torn out and enabled the banquet hall to have a larger open space.
Three of four rooms that connect the main room to the wings will be used as smaller event rental rooms. The fourth room, located in the back right-hand corner of the building, will be used for storage.
“That’s something I researched,” Gervais said, “throughout the community when I was first hired a year ago last August to put this thing together. What does our community want? And they talked about breakout rooms.”
Gervais felt they felt a little short in meeting the community’s needs with those smaller rooms but he noted that they worked with the materials they had and the money available to them. There are plans in place, however, to split up the main banquet hall with partitions should the need arise.
The inner courtyard will also be fixed up in order to have events indoors and out.
As of right now, the wings will not be used. Gervais said the bulk of the money will go towards the main banquet hall but they hope to raise more funds at a later date in order to turn the wings into office space or other rental opportunities.
“We have some ideas down the road that we can do for all four wings but obviously we’re not ready to do that at this point. All the money that is being put into this has got to take care of this part first so we can get revenue coming in and then go from there,” Gervais explained. “It could be years down the road before we do anything; it could be a little less time if we get somebody to come in who wants to do some things. The sky’s the limit on it.”
“Now it’s starting to look like where we’re headed,” Gervais said. “It’s a work in progress.”
Gervais said they had to start over with the county home’s kitchen due to the building’s change in use. Gervais had brought in Carle’s Bratwurst’s Gary Auck to find out what a caterer would like to see in a kitchen.
“We’re trying to take as much input from the community as we can,” said Gervais.
The kitchen is now remodeled and contains things like a new plumbing and a new prep sink. It is fully equipped with whatever a caterer needs for an event, including a storage area and pots and pans.
“If you rented for an event, you can choose the caterer you want to bring in,” Gervais explained, who knows a thing or two about catering and cooking. “We want to give people flexibility that way.”
The Crawford County Board of Developmental Disabilities will not be doing much of the catering for the events; rather, catering will fall to whoever is renting the space. Caterers will, however, have to be licensed for a Level 4 licensed facility.
Gervais said they may expand upon what they can do with the kitchen. He threw out options like catering for small groups or setting up for Carle’s Cooking School, which Gervais teaches each month.
“What I’d like to stress and what the board would like to stress is the weddings are going to be an important part of the whole thing but there’s only so many of them,” Gervais said. “What we can accomplish during the week is going to make or break us. That’s going to be getting businesses on board and that’s why I talked to business people about what you would like to see.”
Gervais said they hope to have a grand opening by June or July but he won’t make any promises. He admits that they already have a wedding lightly penciled in for October and he had an area company coming in to tour the building in anticipation of a Christmas party.
“Things are starting to happen just by word of mouth,” Gervais said. “We’ve not officially advertised yet. We want to be careful. We’re not going to lead people on and think we’re open. We can’t fully book . . . we’re not to that point.”
Nevertheless, Gervais said he will take calls from people interested in event center. For now, interested parties can call the main CCBDD office at 419-562-3211 ext. 100.
“I welcome people wanting to come out and talk about it,” Gervais said, “but they need to understand that we’re not ready; we don’t know so we can’t officially take any down payments or any signed agreements because of that.”
Rather, Gervais said, they are working hard on what rental prices would be. They have researched prices from northern Columbus and areas east and west of the county on what event centers are charging.
“We’re going to look at what we can offer with the setup and tear down and we’ll probably charge a little more for that,” Gervais said. “But I will say this: we will be very understanding of Crawford County and that we do want people to use our facility. We’re going to try the best we can but we’re also going to need to get some money in here to balance the whole thing out.”
The Trillium Event Center project is being funded by government stimulus money. Gervais said the CCBDD had put the money away in a capital improvement fund that has been building over a number of years.
“That’s where the monies are coming from. It’s monies that were here,” Gervais said. “It’s not a huge pot but it will take care of this, as it is now, developed and hopefully opened this summer.”