San Diego, CA (special) -- Perhaps not since 1956 when Robert Briscoe became the first Jew to serve as lord mayor of Dublin has there been so much excitement about Jewish communal activities in an Irish-named area.

The United Jewish Federation of San Diego County is moving its offices to Murphy Canyon Road - and that's no blarney.

Formal dedication ceremonies are planned at noon Oct. 30 for the two-story building at 4950 Murphy Canyon Road which thereafter will become known as the Joseph and Lenka Finci United Jewish Federation Building in memory of the parents of local resident Erna Viterbi.

The Fincis are Sephardic Jews, whose family moved after the expulsion from Spain to Sarajevo and later produced sages and rabbis, including a grand rabbi of Bosnia and Herzogovina in the late 19th century.  After the nazi invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, the Fincis escaped to Italy, then to Switzerland where they waited out the rest of the war in safety before emigrating to California in 1950.

Viterbi and her husband, Qualcomm cofounder Andrew Viterbi, were major donors in the campaign to purchase the 30,000 square-foot, two-story building which has 110 parking spots on its grounds.

Today, Murphy Canyon is a road boasting numerous office buildings along the west side of Interstate 15  between Aero Drive and Clairemont Mesa Blvd.  But since the 1860's when pioneer John Murphy first settled in the area Murphy Canyon was the name by which the route from Mission Valley to Kearny Mesa was known. It was the area's highway of an earlier day.

The Federation already has sold its present Jessie W. Polinsky Building at 4797 Mercury Street for nearly $1 million to a security company and hopes to be moved out by the end of this month, if possible.  

A prominent area within the new building will be named after Polinsky to maintain continuity, according to Steve Abramson, UJF's executive director.  Jessie Polinsky and her husband, Abe, were primary supporters of the United Jewish Federation and Israel in the 1940s and 1950s.   When their daughter and son-in-law, Jeannie and Art Rivkin, donated the building on Mercury Street, it was decided then to name it in Mrs. Polinsky's honor.

Abramson and UJF President Mary Ann Scher recently conducted HERITAGE on a tour of the new facility.  Owing to the slope of the property, the back of the building faces Murphy Canyon and the main entrance is in the rear via a curving driveway.  To help visitors identify the building's location from the street, Federation will place a large replica of its logo featuring a menorah within a globe and the initials 'UJF.'

Once visitors arrive at the main entrance, they will be admitted to a reception area from which they may gain access either to the 15,000-square foot suite of ground floor offices which Federation plans to occupy itself, or take the stairs or elevator to the second floor, which Federation expects to lease to various non-profit tenants from within the Jewish community.  With such proximity, officials of these organizations are likely to encounter each other more frequently. The more spontaneous interactions between UJF and other Jewish organizations the better, Abramson said.

Compared to the 10,500 square feet of space that Federation occupies in the Polinsky building, the occupation of almost one-third more floor area will permit the Federation to grow over the years.  In fact, a few areas within the ground-floor suite purposefully are being left vacant in order to permit expected growth.

Federation plans to close its North County office, and move the two UJF personnel now located there in with other staff members - all the better to facilitate planning meetings, Abramson said.  With the new office building's easy access to Interstate 15, he added, staff members assigned to the North County can easily go north to Rancho Bernardo and Escondido, or cut over west on State Route 52 to go to La Jolla or other coastal communities.

Visitors will find in the lobby a wall with the names of major donors to the United Jewish Federation, as well as the Jewish Community Foundation's new "Book of Life" in which people who have pledged to bequeath a portion of their estates to the Jewish community will write their names and tell of their motivations.

Off the main lobby is a small conference room, one of many meeting facilities that Federation has created within the suite to accommodate the needs of its various departments. Whereas many Federation executives in the old building had offices large enough to accommodate small conference tables, now these executives will have smaller offices and will schedule meetings in the various conference areas.

The largest conference area will be the board room which can accommodate comfortably the more than 70 board members who are the official policy-making body of the United Jewish Federation.  Additionally, the space will be used for various community meetings.

Near the large board room is the executive conference room, which will have a table for 22 persons and a complete audio-visual set up, with power point projectors and satellite conferencing capability.  Here is where Scher and those who follow her into the UJF presidency will lead many of the week-to-week planning sessions.

A fourth conference area will be on the south side of the building, in the area which the Jewish Community Foundation, a separately incorporated subsidiary of the United Jewish Federation, will share space with the Federation's accounting offices.  A feature of this area is a room for keeping secure files.

A fifth conference room will be located a short walk from Abramson's corner office, beyond the offices set aside for Abramson's deputy director, assistant, and  for the  Israel department.

Along the other corridor leading from Abramson's office are the fundraising departments both for Federation at large and the Women's Division.

A large central room will feature 18 cubicles to be utilized by secretaries, part-time employees and aides.  A lunch room for Federation's staff of more than 40 persons will provide indoor tables, and there will be a seating area outside as well.  In recognition of the fact that many UJF employees are not Jewish, separate refrigerators will be maintained for kosher and non-kosher foods.  Scher stressed that any time Federation is serving food at meetings, it will be strictly kosher.

There is also a large area for photocopying machines and other production equipment, as well as a special area for maintenance of computers and other technology.

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Relocations of large organizations don't just happen on the spur of the moment; they have to be carefully planned, Abramson  said..

"We sat down at the beginning with our management committee headed by Bill Snyder and asked what it was that we wanted," he related.  "All of the variables were developed and weighted, and then neighborhoods were narrowed, and then we went about looking for properties - it was done almost scientifically."

The top three considerations, said Scher, were "price, location and size."

Two past Federation presidents, Rod Stone and Stan Foster, "helped us identify buildings that we could look at - and we looked at I don't know how many buildings," Scher said.  "Some of them were beautiful, some were ugly, some were okay, but at first we never found just the right mix-the right neighborhood, the right traffic pattern, the right size of building, the right building that didn't need a lot of work.

"Then one day Rod said, 'I found a building-I am tying this building up for you guys, so go over there and look at it,'" Scher recalled.  "We ran over there, and Stan came with us, and everyone said 'This is it.'"

Abramson said Stone and Foster helped the Federation negotiate a price of nearly $4 million for the building. Larry Sherman, an attorney and a former Federation president, negotiated the formal purchase with attorneys for the estate.

Next, Scher, Abramson, Gary Jacobs, who is UJF's campaign chairman and president-elect, and Marjory Kaplan, executive director of the Jewish Community Foundation set about raising the funds to pay for the building -- with the help of the Viterbi family.   

Scher said everyone who was asked to make a contribution in support of the special building fund - over and above their regular contributions to the Federation - agreed to instantly.

"I think we are lucky to find this place," Abramson said.

"Federation is excited!  Foundation is excited!" agreed Scher.