The Lowndes County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to ask for bids to reroof a portion of the former Maxxim Medical building, which houses the Lowndes County Coroner’s Office, as well as serves as a storage location for Lowndes County Emergency Management.
Coroner Greg Merchant asked the board to take action before the roof damage gets worse.
“We’ve got to a point now where we’ve really got to take a serious look,” Merchant said. “It’s just gotten into a state of disrepair over the past few years.”
Merchant said water is coming down the wall and rotting away the wood near an electrical box, but there are other issues, too.
“Walls are beginning to bulge,” he said. “We have to keep fans on the carpet to keep it dry, and it’s beginning to take an odor.”
His office houses equipment that needs to not be exposed to the elements, he said, as well as many records.
“We’ve got $400,000 worth of assets that we need to maintain,” he said. “…That equipment needs to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. Then we’ve got all the death records for the county for the past 25 years.”
Merchant said his office occupies about 7,500 square feet of space, and that the EMA storage area takes up about about another 7,500 or 8,000.
Merchant said he got a quote back in 2021 for repairs just for his portion of the roof, and it came to about $61,000. He estimated that would double if the EMA portion of the building was added.
District 4 Supervisor Jeff Smith suggested using the money from the sale of the old volunteer fire department building on Wilcutt Block Road last year — about $150,000 — to pay for the work.
District 1 Supervisor Harry Sanders said he thought the city should bear some of the cost.
“I don’t have any problem with using that money for that, but the problem I see is that the city and county own that building jointly,” he said. “I would think the city ought to go in jointly with the county to repair the building.”
The city and the county jointly purchased the building back in 2008, according to County Administrator Jay Fisher.
Sanders asked Merchant how much of his work is in the city versus the county, and Merchant estimated it was more in the county.
“The county’s a larger area, so I’m going to say probably 70 percent county and 30 percent city,” he said. “…The populous outside the city is larger.”
District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks said he wanted to go on and get bids.
“Let’s go on and get the bids and work all this other stuff out,” he said. “It’s just exhausting, does the city or county have more dead.”
Smith motioned to advertise for bids for the roof repairs, seconded by Brooks. The motion passed unanimously.
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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