Bancroft to announce move to new headquarters

Bancroft officials are expected to announce Wednesday that they are moving their headquarters to a newly purchased, 41,500-square-foot office building at 1255 Caldwell Rd. in Cherry Hill.

The new building will house the executive offices and administrative departments for the organization, which provides services for children and adults with intellectual or development disabilities and adults needing neurological rehabilitation.

The sale closed Tuesday, a Bancroft spokeswoman said.

The headquarters will replace rented space at 800 Kings Highway N. in Cherry Hill.

"This new, modern office space will allow our leadership and administrative departments to operate more efficiently and comfortably as they strive to accomplish Bancroft's mission of offering a wide range of programs and services that make a real difference in people's lives," said Toni Pergolin, Bancroft president.

"We are thrilled that Bancroft has chosen Cherry Hill to be its new headquarters location," said Mayor Chuck Cahn. "It signals a continuation of Bancroft's 131-year commitment to the Camden County community, where Bancroft today employs over 1,000 people, and is another example of the steady and significant growth of economic development in Cherry Hill."

When it is occupied in January, the new space will also house the company's admissions, finance and billing, human resources, and facilities departments, said Bancroft spokeswoman Kate Moran.

The building will also provide a new location for Bancroft Office Support Services, a printing and office support business staffed by adults served at Bancroft.

Bancroft's continuing quality improvement team, information technology department, and facilities and instruction management will relocate to Caldwell Road from the company's Haddonfield campus.

Remaining in Haddonfield will be the Bancroft School, the pediatric and adolescent residential program, the behavior stabilization unit, and the nursing team, Moran said.

This year, Bancroft announced a major expansion of the Bancroft Brain Injury Rehabilitation program, thanks to a $2 million grant from Lynda and Stewart Resnick through their Resnick Foundation.

The grant will allow the program to move into an 18,000-square-foot facility in December, to be called the Bancroft NeuroRehab Resnick Center at Mount Laurel. The brain injury program has been providing services in Cherry Hill and Brick and Plainsboro, N.J.

Last summer, there was discussion of Camden County's possibly buying 13 acres of Bancroft's 19.2-acre Haddonfield campus to be used as open space.

Recently, the county's open space preservation committee indicated it would give two other acquisition projects - one in Winslow, the other at Woodcrest Country Club in Cherry Hill - priority over Bancroft's Haddonfield acreage, according to the committee's interim chairman, Jack Sworaski.

Earlier in 2013, Haddonfield voters defeated a $12 million bond question that would have allowed the Haddonfield school district to buy the entire campus. Opponents said they felt the purchase price was too high compared with an earlier appraisal and that plans for the property were not firm enough.

After the bonds failure, Pergolin said Bancroft would instead modernize the Haddonfield facilities.

Moran said no other potential buyers have made an offer for the property.