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Link Associates Inc. is planning a move. Judging from the response of the 700 people with varying degrees of mental disabilities who use its on-site services, the move can’t come soon enough.

Link is a 56-year-old nonprofit organization that helps its “consumers” acquire the skills necessary to hold a job, plan a vacation and live a life with as few limitations as possible.

For several years, those skills have been acquired in a converted warehouse on Northeast 14th Street, a building that served Link’s purposes until the costs to make needed repairs to its roof, heating and cooling system, plumbing and lighting were estimated at $8.8 million.

“As one board member put it, ‘If I had $9 million, I would give it to you, but not to put into this building,'” said Linda Dunshee, Link’s executive director.

A feasibility study determined that Link could obtain $4.5 million through traditional financing, private commitments and fund raising.

“If we put $4.5 million into the building we’re in, you wouldn’t even see it, because it would go into things like the roof and heating and cooling; it wouldn’t improve the environment for our consumers,” Dunshee said.

With that budget in mind, Link went looking for another building and Dunshee kept Link’s consumers informed about the search.

They approved.

When the Polk County Board of Supervisors announced on Nov. 30 that they would contribute $500,000 in funds received from Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino toward the purchase of a new building, Link’s consumers were on hand to deliver a $200 contribution.

They have continued to make contributions, some a penny at a time.

Dunshee said the plan is to purchase the former site of Vatterott College at 6100 Thornton Ave., a fairly modern building that would require little in the way of renovations to provide the large rooms Link requires for many of its training classes, she said.

Link, with an annual budget of about $9 million, can obtain financing for about $1 million of the project. Board members have promised financial contributions, and its staff of 300 has pledged $55,000. Link also seeks an additional $300,000 grant from Prairie Meadows.