Girl Scouts celebrate new center

Caitlin Hudgins

Wednesday, June 9, 2004 | 8:51 a.m.

It's every sweet lover's fantasy: a 17,000-cubic-foot warehouse filled with cookies.

It's a dream come true for the Las Vegas Valley's Girl Scouts, too, and it's just one part of their new $5 million, 19,000-square-foot Training and Service Center near Eastern Avenue and Bonanza Road. It is four times as large as the Girl Scouts of Frontier Council's previous temporary building.

The center's cookie warehouse allows Girl Scouts to distribute their famous treats from one central location rather than rent out multiple storage units and stack boxes of cookies along office walls. Plus, the warehouse's extra-large, roll-up door lets parents back right up to the building to load boxes of Thin Mints and other confections into their SUVs to take home to sell, Las Vegas Girl Scout spokesman Juergen Barbusca said.

Also inside the center is the Cox Communications Technology Learning Center, equipped with 10 laptops and a broadband connection.

An outdoor area adds space for Girl Scout promotion ceremonies, Barbusca said.

"Bridging," the Girl Scout term for the promotions, which represent growth, learning and maturity, used to occur at various valley parks.

Now the promotions can take place on four 13-foot cement bridges, which cross over dry streams right on the center's premises.

The center also has offices, a volunteer room, a retail store and a library.

"It (the new center) puts everything under one roof," Barbusca said.

The Girl Scout Training and Service Center will be dedicated 11 a.m. Friday, at the center, 2941 Harris Ave., recognizing the $4.2 million contribution the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation made to the project. The center plans an open house Saturday for Girl Scouts and their families and friends.