FROM A HISTORY OF THE FLORIDA FRUIT & VEGETABLE ASSOCIATION - THE FIRST 25 YEARS

Taken from minutes of the October 1952 Board of Directors meeting ...

FFVA EXPANDS

FFVA expanded its Colonial Drive facilities in 1953-1954.

FFVA Executive Vice President and Board Secretary LaMont Graw, seeing the ultimate need for more headquarter space, proposed that FFVA purchase six adjacent lots to its Orlando headquarters on Colonial Drive. (The Colonial Drive office was built in 1951. The land was purchased for $5,000 and the 3,000-square-foot building cost $36,321 including air conditioning, office equipment, parking lot, and landscaping.)

A house was located on three of them and could be purchased for $12,000 cash and the other three for $2,610. He said the first floor of the house could be used for additional office space and storage. The second floor was an apartment renting for $45 a month.

In rapid-fire order, the board approved $14,610 for the immediate purchase of the property; appropriated an additional $3,000 to be used for alterations, additional parking area, and additional equipment; directed the officers to have plans prepared for an addition to the office and for use of the new property and to complete a long-range plan for development of the property – all to be presented to the board at its next meeting.

March 12, 1953 – the next board meeting

Mr. Graw detailed plans for expansion of the FFVA headquarters. It would create an L-shaped structure 6,400 square feet in size, including the present building. He said the additional space would be needed as FFVA had 26 employees.

FFVA's Colonial Drive headquarters started out as a modest building in the 1950s. The association remained at that location until moving to Maitland, Fla. in 2004.