Irmo chamber getting new home, new leader (+ video)

The Greater Irmo Chamber of Commerce is getting a new home followed by a new leader.

The business organization will move by June 30 into a new home next to Town Hall around the corner from its longtime rented office.

Then chamber leaders will pick a new chief executive officer to succeed Tiffany Boyce Heitzman, who is overseeing completion of the $250,000 project amid preparation for a family move to Arizona in late July.

Settling in a new home is a cause of celebration as a growth spurt increased membership by 100 businesses to a total of 440 in the past year, chamber leaders say.

“It’s time,” chamber President Tom Ledbetter said. “The Irmo Chamber has come of age.”

The new 2,000-square-foot office will allow members to meet in the chamber’s headquarters for the first time instead of borrowing space at other sites, such as the Harbison campus of Midlands Technical College.

“We’ve been meeting wherever someone had room for us,” Heitzman said.

She’ll settle briefly in a facility that she says, “I’ve lived and breathed” for three years.

Chamber leaders looked along Lake Murray Boulevard and St. Andrews Roads before settling on the site in the 1200 block of Columbia Avenue.

The choice cements the area as an unofficial town center for the community of 11,000 residents, Heitzman said.

The new office site is surrounded by a town park and police headquarters as well as Town Hall.

The location also underscores improved cooperation with town leaders.

“We all realized we need that partnership,” Heitzman said. “We’ve not always agreed, but, at the end of the day, we all have the goal of making our town the best possible.”