Florence Throws Away Two Million?

 

If you've fallen behind in the ongoing saga of Who's on First at Florence City Hall, here's a quick primer:

* For years and years, several City offices have been located in the Florence-Lauderdale Government Building on Court Street.

* In the relatively recent past, the City moved the Board of Education back to Riverview Drive and made room for Andy's office (we assume the Government Building had better napping acoustics than City Hall).

* In the past few months, the Florence Utilities payment department has moved to its new facilities on Seville Street, freeing up at least a small amount of space in City Hall.

However, with cries of black mold lighting fixtures and asbestos door knobs, the current Florence City Council has ordered a new building from Amazon. Yes, that previous sentence was written with tongue in cheek, but the idea is the same. The council wants a new building, complete with their names on a plague in the lobby. With only months to go in their terms, something has to be done quickly.

The cost of this new Taj Mahal central office office is rising every day, but the council now thinks it has a solution. The new municipal building will be smaller, with the more minor offices stuffed .8 mile away in a tin can that Bank Independent will no longer need for an Operations Center once its new marble palace is complete on the TVA Reservation. (See photo above.)

 

Cost of the Veterans Drive tin can? Two Million. Look carefully at the photo of the Bank Independent Operations Center above. We assume the building is worth $9,999.99, with the prime real estate being valued at $1,990,000.01.

Can the Florence City Council not find a better (and perhaps cheaper) building within .8 mile of the Municipal Building? Or is the council simply scratching Macke Mauldin's back?

Even better, can the council not come up with some kind of alternative financing to complete the original plan for a new City Hall adjacent to the current outdated one? At this rate, Florence will be replacing its facilities more often than Burger King or Mickey D's.

One Hell of a Structure

 

It got a reprieve from the wrecking ball on Tuesday. Then on Friday it survived someone trying to burn it down. Don’t tell me that new parking deck with a price tag of over $13 million taxpayer dollars could survive what the “original” parking deck has been through. Through mud, blood and beer and plots to demolish and now FIRE the original parking deck is still standing! A little worn, battered and beaten but still waiting to serve.

I was driving up Pine St after going to look at the building at 426 Veteran’s Dr . The special meeting of the Florence city council was called to approve an appraisal of this building for the “annex” building to be used as part of the “new” city hall building project. This is the former Social Security building but it has been used for several things over the years. For reference, it is at the corner of Cherry St and Veterans Dr and St Vincent De Paul Thrift store is across Cherry St from the back of the building. Bill Griffin made a statement at the last special called meeting that if the building appraised for anywhere past the $2 to $6 million mark, he would vote no on its use. Michele Eubanks and Kaytrina Simmons seemed noncommittal. And this was supposedly Jimmy Oliver and Jackie Hendrix’s “deal” and of course Blake Edwards went along. We will see how things shake out after the appraisal. Hopefully, this can be done at a regular council meeting.

As I said, I was going home on Pine St when I saw smoke coming from the “original” parking deck. People were lined up on the Pine St side so I parked in Courtview Towers parking lot and walked over. Flames were coming from a storage area that was under the first floor entrance. It is fenced in but the gate was standing open and probably someone had entered and started a fire.

The firemen arrived quickly and put the few flames out. Nobody was injured. I have been transparent in my efforts to save some part of the “original” parking deck. I believe the old girl has life left in her yet. There has still not been an independent engineering study done on the deck. LBYD engineering was proven to have an interest in seeing the deck demolished when they sent the letter to Andy Betterton saying it was unsafe. Not only had they not actually inspected the deck in 6 years, they had a contract with Lambert Ezell and Durham architects to be the site engineers for the “lay down” area after the parking deck was demolished! All of this just seems to be ignored by Andy Betterton and the entire city council.

Friday Fire on Pine Street

The good old parking deck, nearly 46 year old, has survived abuse, neglect, plots to demolish and now fire. It may see the wrecking ball yet but all of Florence needs to remember...They don’t build 'em like they used to! You can’t keep a good deck down!