After building a new health department last year, Lowndes County is looking for someone to take the old building off its hands.
The 12,500-square-foot, two-story former Lowndes County Health Department on Military Road has remained idle since a new facility opened in East Columbus.
A longtime goal of the Board of Supervisors, the project came to fruition last year after much debate over where to locate the new facility.
Now, the supervisors are soliciting offers on the old building, which was built in 1948 and hasn”t seen major renovations since then. Sealed bids are due to the county administrator”s office by 9 a.m. June 29.
Then, supervisors will review the proposals and go from there. Depending on the bids, the county may not even sell the building.
“It depends on if somebody wants it and how much they are willing to pay for it,” said Lowndes County Administrator Ralph Billingsley.
Billingsley also is offering tours of the building, so prospective buyers know what kind of work will go into restoring it.
“It”s old and it has some issues,” he said. “We”ve asked in the ad that anyone who”s interested in it, that they contact us and walk through it, so they can know the condition of it.”
An ad began running in The Dispatch on Sunday.
The county has had no formal appraisal on the building, and the area is zoned for single-family housing. Other uses would have to go before the city of Columbus” building inspections department and possibly its planning commission.
“It”s grandfathered,” Georgia Harrison, office manager for the inspections department, said of the old health department. “Before zoning was enacted, it was there.”
Whether or not a buyer has to go before the planning commission will depend on their plans for the space, she said.
“They give us the use, and we determine whether that goes to the planning board or not,” Harrison said. “If today, someone stood at the office and wanted to build a single-family residence there, there wouldn”t be too many obstacles.”
Supervisors also have discussed possibly renovating the building for county use.
Lowndes County built a new $2.4 million health department at the corner of Lehmberg and Warpath roads last year. It opened in August. The building was paid for with interest from the sale of Baptist Memorial Hospital (for $30 million) to Baptist in 2006. Prior to then, Baptist had rented the building. The county also received a $600,000 grant from the Mississippi Development Authority for the project. The land on which it sits cost $200,000.
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