Lowndes County will have a new tenant — and a familiar face — for the former CalStar building.
During Friday’s meeting, the county board of supervisors approved a recommendation from Golden Triangle Development LINK CEO Joe Max Higgins to lease the facility to its original owner, Agricel, for $30,000 a month. However, the building will be used as a distribution warehouse for PACCAR and will be managed by Comprehensive Logistics.
The 10-year lease will be retroactive to March 1, which means the county will be able to recoup the $30,000 in rent it had been receiving from CalStar, which went into foreclosure in November. Rent payments continued until Feb. 15.
“That means all the county will be out is half a month’s rent, $15,000,” County Administrator Ralph Billingsley said.
The building was originally built by Agricel, but purchased by the county six years ago to be used as a spec building. The county leased the building to CalStar, a paving manufacturer, in 2013, charging the $30,000 monthly rent required to cover its MDA loan, but the company ceased operations in October and went into foreclosure.
“This makes perfect sense for PACCAR because the building is right out its back door,” said Higgins, who said PACCAR is investing $2 million in improvements to the property and is likely to expand the facility in the future.
Other business
The county also approved a recommendation on a 10-year tax exemption for 2015 acquisitions by Weyerhaeuser.
“Most of that involved improvements to emissions, which we think is being a good neighbor,” said Weyerhaeuser vice president David Phillips.
Weyerhauser is currently working on the sale of its local facilities to International Paper that is expected to be completed later this year. The tax-exemption would be transferred to IP once the sale is complete. The exemption applies only to the county with the county school’s receiving full tax revenue from the acquisitions, County Tax Assessor Greg Andrews said.
The board also passed two resolutions from District 4 Supervisors Jeff Smith. Smith asked for the board to approve a resolution noting the contributions of former District 4 Volunteer Fire Chief Willie Louis Harrison, who died last week. Smith also asked that the new fire station in District 4 be named in honor of Harrison, who served as volunteer fire chief for 20 years.
Funeral services for Harrison were held Friday in Columbus.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
