Offer back on the table for county building

By Deborah Buckhalter

Published: July 8, 2008

It appears the Walgreens drug store chain has renewed its interest in buying the building that now houses Jackson County’s Community Development, code enforcement and weatherization program offices.
The brick structure is located at the corner of U.S. 90 and Noland Street in Marianna.
An agent speaking on behalf of Walgreens on Tuesday offered the county $695,000 for the aging building.
That’s the same amount he offered more than a year ago when the real estate market was still red hot. All five Jackson County Commissioners indicated that they were eager to take advantage of the unchanged offer having been made in today’s cooler real estate climate.
There’s one big problem though: Where to put the staff that will be displaced by the sale of the building.
The current plan is to move them into the old public health department building once a new health facility is constructed. The money for a new health center has been approved by the state and plans are on track for construction.
But it will likely not be finished until August or September of 2009.
The agent wants to close on the building by December of this year.
Under the current proposed terms of the sale, the county could stay in the building from December to May 2009 rent-free, but in June would start paying rent of $5,000 a month as long as the county continues to use the structure. The county would have to be out of it completely by September of 2009.
Commissioners directed County Administrator Ted Lakey to negotiate for a later moving date, and/or perhaps a lower monthly rental fee.
The agent wrote in a memo to Lakey that, as part of the Walgreens proposal, he also plans to buy a nearby piece of privately owned property.
The same plan was announced when the agent first offered to buy the building, but plans were put on hold before the deal could go through. The general economic slump across the country was cited as a factor in the stall.