Time does really fly! It’s been nearly two years already since Mr. Gary and Dr. Denise Rollins cut the ribbon on the new Rollins Life Celebration Center. The joyful day marked the end of years of work to relocate their operations from its historic location on South Street to a newly constructed and custom designed facility along Catoctin Avenue.
We recently had the opportunity to stop by the beautiful center and hear their thoughts as they looked back on the experience of undertaking a major business expansion.
A Starting Point
Rollins Life Celebration Center began serving the Frederick Community and surrounding areas in the early 90s on All Saints Street before moving to its more familiar location on South Street in 1996.
Gary - We stayed at South Street 17 years, and we were able to build the business there. We had an old building, but it was a very, very good start for us. It got us going. Eventually, though we knew we had to modernize to keep up with today’s standards.
Not only did the South Street building help them get their start but the Rollins also wisely used their experiences in the space to identify areas for improvement in their new, custom designed facility.
Gary - We found the first building was our learning curve of what we needed to do. With the new facility, we incorporated a lot of things we had noticed while at the other one and fixed it here.
Denise - Like keeping it all on one floor, making it fully accessible and usable for multiple purposes.
The Transition
There’s a lot to coordinate when expanding a business while still operating a business. Even navigating the publicity around your plans can be tricky.
Gary - I wanted to sell, but I didn’t want to put a sign on the building. I didn’t necessarily want to let everyone in the community know and risk the confusion that we were closing. We didn’t know exactly how to approach it.
Fortunately, Frederick is a place where relationships are a strong resource. It turned out that a contact with the current Foundry Square project happened to bump into Dr. Denise one day and asked her if they’d ever thought about selling the building.
Denise - It was a godsend. I don’t think he had any knowledge we were hoping to sell – it was just perfect timing.
Not everything in the transition process went so smoothly though and the Rollins had to persevere through countless challenges.
Gary - Trying to do the regular business plus manage the project was a lot. We had a lot of meetings and then we still have funerals to oversee.
Denise - During the move, one of our long-term employees passed as well. Moving while we were working through our own grief was hard.
Gary - We were in COVID too. We couldn’t get supplies and costs went up. And waiting for licensing held us up another two months.
Denise - We thought we were going to build for 6 months. But we ended up building for 1.5 years. So, I would tell anybody whatever time you think you will be done in … add some months to it. That extra time was a lot of cost on the project. We were paying for two locations. The fact that we are still in business after balancing all that awes me sometimes.
Lessons Learned
What other lessons are they able to share from their first-hand experience in a major expansion project?
Denise - There are so many hurdles to jump. You really need help to direct you through it all-- whether with the city or the builders or regarding financials. I think if you don’t know any of that and you try to do it by yourself, it becomes a very difficult process. There’s so much to know and to ask. If we had it to do over again, we would have considered hiring someone to do the project management to help us through the process more smoothly and save on cost.
Taking Advantage of the Neighborhood Business Work Program
One helpful resource that that they were able to leverage during the project was the Neighborhood Business Works Program. The program is a financial tool through the state of Maryland which can provide gap funding when a traditional funding source isn’t able to fully cover a project. The program proved to be invaluable to the Rollins.
Denise – It was a lot of paperwork and there was a lot to do, but it was a clear process. They helped you out a lot and would steer you along if you had questions. It was work ..but it was worth it.
Now in the New Facility
In addition to better accommodating the services of the funeral home through increased parking and an improved single-story layout, the beautiful new facility has become a place for the community. The Whole Heart Center, the non-profit founded by Dr. Denise, is now collocated on site. The organization holds frequent events – including Galentine’s Day and line dancing – on site, to help reconnect joy and grief within our community.
Gary – The project has really taken us the next step. The biggest thing we get is ‘This doesn’t look like a funeral home.’ And we designed it that way. We didn’t want that stereotype of sadness. We changed the name to Life Celebration Center to put the emphasis on the fact we are celebrating life. When we did our open house, we had hundreds of people here and they were so excited to see what we have here. It made everything worth it.