Lowndes County supervisors will decide soon if there”s anything left to salvage of the 62-year-old former health department on Military Road.
And if there is, once remodeled, it could become home to the local American Red Cross or the Lowndes County Extension Service.
The Red Cross currently is housed in the courthouse annex, next to the Lowndes County Courthouse on Second Avenue North. Supervisors have talked about tearing the annex down and creating a “green area,” said District 1 Supervisor and Board President Harry Sanders. The Extension office is in a house in front of Franklin Academy.
“Ideally what I”d like to do is close Third Avenue down and tie our parking lot and Franklin”s into a park kind of thing,” said Sanders. “But that”s later on down the road.”
The 12,000-square-foot building, which housed the Lowndes County Health Department until August, was built in 1948 and hasn”t had any major renovations. Health department employees complained of mold, chipping plaster and sewage backing up onto the floors at the old building.
Lowndes County built a new $2.4 million health department at the corner of Lehmberg and Warpath roads, leaving the old building empty.
The city building inspector and architect will review the building to estimate renovation costs, once the supervisors do a walk-through to see if the project is worth pursuing.
“We”ve got any number of people to put there, only if it”s worth salvaging,” Sanders said.
The county is looking at options to relocate the Department of Motor Vehicles and Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol; they currently share a building with the Lowndes County Road Department, neighboring the Lowndes County Justice Court on Airline Road.
The county is considering letting the road department utilize the whole building.
Part of plans to issue up to $7.75 million in bonds calls for construction of a new justice court building near the Lowndes County Adult Detention Center on Martin Luther King Drive, which would leave the old facility empty.
“We may tear that down,” Sanders said of the current justice court building.
He”d also like to see the DMV in a better part of town.
With Columbus Air Force Base and various business and industry drawing people from out of state, many people visit the DMV to get their Mississippi license.
Its current location, Sanders said, doesn”t make a very good impression.
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