Omega School buys the former Centro Hispano building

 













New Home For Centro Hispano
Capital Campaign Hopes To Raise $600k


Friday, December 9, 2005
By Pat Schneider The Capital Times

Centro Hispano, a services hub for Madison's Latino community, is moving across the street to a bigger facility as the first step in an ambitious plan to expand its offerings to eventually include a community center and housing development.
Executive Director Peter Munoz said that Centro's board is scheduled to close Dec. 15 on the purchase of the MasterGraphics property at 810 W. Badger Road.

Centro in now located in a 3,000-square-foot former city police station at 835 W. Badger Road. It will occupy 4,000 to 5,000 square feet in the new location, while the rest of the 18,000 square feet is leased to Dane County and other social services agencies, Munoz said.

"It will be a collaborative facility where we can refer clients down the hall -- a place to go for a seamless menu of services," Munoz said.

Financing to buy the $825,000 former printing plant will include a $225,000 grant from the city's Community Development Block Grant office, $100,000 in federal funds from Housing and Urban Development, and the proceeds of the sale of Centro's current building, purchased in 2002 for $252,500. It's still mortgaged.

All told, Munoz said his agency will need to raise some $600,000 in a capital campaign. Plans are to move into the facility in January.

Omega School, a private agency providing basic adult education and high school equivalency courses, is set to purchase Centro's current home for $350,000.

The purchase will give Omega a permanent home, said Oscar Mireles, Omega's director.

The school is currently in rented quarters on North Sherman Avenue.

Mireles said the agency's board has been accruing a building fund and no special fundraising campaign will be required.

"This will allow us to do small-group instruction and explore getting into digital classroom technology," he said.

The new Centro Hispano headquarters will be next to the Villager Mall, which is slated for a multi-million-dollar redevelopment by the city to house a variety of social service agencies to serve the city's south side.

Services for senior citizens are among the planned new offerings.

Eventually, Munoz would like to see Centro's administrative offices located in the mall and a community center built next to the building now being acquired.

He said that recent private demographic studies show the number of Latinos in Dane County could be as high as 70,000.

"Seventy thousand wouldn't surprise me," Munoz said.

The 2000 Census reported 14,387 Hispanic or Latino residents in Dane County, but many in the community say that drastically undercounted the population, many of whom avoided the process because of concerns over their immigration status.

In particular, many young single men working in the community are under the radar, Munoz said.

His model for Centro's future is the United Community Center in Milwaukee, which offers the Latino community there social services, arts, fitness and teen facilities, as well as a middle school. Housing could be developed on a model comparable to Common Wealth Development in Madison, he said.

"This is not pie in the sky," he said.