ARC moves into custom digs

EUCLID, Ohio - A two-year-old monitoring company here has moved into its new location, more than a decade after the company’s management team designed and constructed the custom central station for another monitoring company. American Response Center, formed in late 2001, will move into the building, once home to Security Associates International, in late June or early July, according to Jim Osborne, ARC’s president. The building was built and designed in the late 1980s for Emergency Response Center, a central station where Osborne served as vice president and general manager. After purchasing ERC in 1997 and continuing to use the central station, SAI vacated the building more than a year ago after it moved its monitoring operations out of Cleveland as part of a consolidation plan. With the new 4,500 square foot facility, ARC will have three times the space of its existing 1,500-square-foot building, which the company is leasing. The company plans to use only half of the space to start, reserving the rest for room to grow. “It’s built to meet UL specifications,” Osborne said, “and for our operations and our plans, it’s more than enough.” With about 12,000 accounts, and another 3,000 in the pipeline, the new facility provides ample room for expansion to ARC’s target account range of between 40,000 and 50,000 accounts. ERC had about 120,000 accounts at the time former owner Robert Ambros sold the company to SAI. Because of ERC’s original $250,000 investment, ARC’s undertaking will be less than $100,000, Osborne said. The building needs general maintenance work, such as new paint and carpets. “We’ll have to clean up a bit and add our phone lines,” said Carrie Osborne, vice president of ARC. A portion of the new space, about 40 square feet, will be dedicated to video monitoring,while the traditional alarm monitoring will be performed in a 700 square foot portion of the building. The two dispatch areas are housed in the center of the building and are flanked with office space, including a new conference and office area available to visiting dealers. One-way glass for viewing separates the central station, where most of ARC’s 18 employees work. The new building is only two miles from ARC’s current headquarters.