Chamber completes move into new offices

By Phil Cobb | October 27, 2015 |

CHRIS ROUSH/DAILY FORUM
Greater Maryville Chamber of Commerce staffers, Shanda Keirsey, left, administrative assistant, and Jordyn Swalley, executive director, are settling in at the chamber’s new headquarters at 408 N. Market St. The new location also houses the local Missouri State License Bureau office and Nodaway County Economic Development.

It’s official.

The Greater Maryville Chamber of Commerce has a new location.

After months of remodeling, the chamber moved to 408 N. Market St., just across the street from its old quarters next door to the Maryville City Hall.

For the first time in more than 100 years, the chamber owns its own building, and Executive Director Jordyn Swalley said the move marks the beginning of a new era.

“I think one of the things about the new setup is it is a smaller area, so we can utilize more of the area compared to the other building, just because it was so much bigger,” Swalley said.

“We had a lot of wasted space, and we had stuff that we had gathered for 20 years. We got the chance to get rid of that, to clean up and organize ourselves.”

The new location, which is the former law office of Scott Ross and Doug Thomson, is also home to Nodaway County Economic Development and the local Missouri State License Bureau operation.

Earlier this year, Swalley said there is a certain amount of uncertainty with regard to the license bureau, which provides the chamber with a large percentage of its revenue — more than $20,000 a year.

Operation of the license office is subject to a bidding process every three years, and the chamber has had competition in the past. The chamber is currently in the second year of its bureau contract.

For the time being, the license bureau and NCED will continue to pay rent to the chamber, and that money will go toward paying off $151,000 in loans taken out to purchase and remodel the building.

Swalley said she is excited about the possibilities the restructuring has created for the business advocacy organization.

“It’s refreshing,” Swalley said. “It’s nice to know that our chamber is trying to find better ways to help our members and better utilize the money we do have from our membership.

“We are utilizing that in a better way than we were before,” she said. “It gives us new ideas about what we could do with that extra money we’re saving now.”

Swalley said the move wouldn’t have been possible without the support of her staff, the staffs of the bureau and NCED, and the community at large.

Now that the new office is up and running, she said she is looking forward to planning upcoming chamber events.

“We’ve done quite a bit this year, but I think one of my main things is working on our events,” Swalley said.

“We just got a new website and a membership management system, and that’s one of the new things coming up this year that I want to push to our members because they can utilize it,” she added.