County clears last hurdle for new health department

By Deborah Buckhalter

Published: May 13, 2008

What’s left of the old tornado-stricken Sykes call center will soon be cleared away to make room for a new Jackson County Health Department.

County Health Director William Long said Tuesday that demolition could start in 30-45 days.

Action taken by the county earlier in the day had made it possible for that step to occur.

When the community was courting Sykes several years ago, the city of Marianna and Jackson County had joined forces to create an incentive package to lure the company here. The land was part of that deal. Located in the Marianna Industrial Park but owned by the county, it had been turned over to Sykes. But a few years later, when Sykes announced that it was abandoning its local operation, the land and the building Sykes had erected were subsequently turned back over to the two entities.

A tornado subsequently heavily damaged the building, and it has sat unused and crumbling since.

To make it possible for the county health department to locate on the property, the county needed to solely own the asset.

The city agreed last week to give its portion of the property to the county, and on Tuesday, Jackson County commissioners formally accepted it from the city.
Although Long said he couldn’t accurately predict a date for the start of construction, he did estimate that it will take 9-12 months to build a new home for the health department once the work begins.

At a cost of $12 million, the new building will give health department employees more than twice the space they now occupy in four different locations, and will bring all operations under one roof on the 12-acre site.

The county’s two dental clinics, now located on 4th and Guyton streets, its environmental health division on Lafayette Street, and the main public health building on 4th will all move into the new structure. The square footage of all four current locations comes to roughly 17,000 square feet, compared to the 40,000 square feet that the new building will include.

Construction dollars are on the way from the state, Long told commissioners Tuesday.

Long said he’s looking forward to that.

“The health department provides a number of valuable public health services in a very small amount of space,” Long said. “That’s inconvenient to staff and the clients we serve. This will allow us to provide the same high level of service, but in adequate space. For example, in our present location, we have providers who are using their office space as exam rooms. We have office space that was originally built for one but that has been subdivided and is being used by three, and in some cases, five. That’s going to change, and immediately we’ll probably look to have a larger dental program than we have now. It has been a long time coming, and it’s the result of years of educating our legislative delegation about the world in which public health has operated in since 1955. We’re certainly indebted to the members of our legislative team – Al Lawson, Marti Coley, Curtis Richardson and Don Brown – for the help they have been in getting us where we are today.”