About Us

The two men found a building in Santa Ana and set up the Orange County Shared Spaces Foundation to buy it. Podlich oversaw much of the fundraising and Lortie, working pro bono, handled the renovation, space planning, contracting and leasing. The project cost nearly $4 million, including a $2.5 million first mortgage that was provided by Lortie. Almost $1 million came from charitable donations. Lortie and Podlich also provided private loans to support the refinancing of the building and ongoing renovations, and later donated directly to building operations. The 33,800-square-foot structure needed earthquake retrofitting, elevator restoration, new air conditioning, new parking lot, and energy-efficient lighting. 

After 20 years of serving on boards, Podlich’s original motivation was to focus on a philanthropic investment that could benefit many organizations at once. The Village seeks to do that by offering nonprofits a place where they can rent office space with reasonable lease rates, share back office services and pick up intangible benefits from clustering together. By embracing the nonprofit center model, Podlich and Lortie’s long-term vision was for the Village at 17th Street to be self-supporting, with the rents paying for the mortgage and other costs. Today, that vision has come to life, and the nonprofit center serves as one of the most successful shared-space models in the country.