MOULTRIE — A development company has six months to develop a plan for using the former downtown Friedlander building, which has sat vacant for most of the past 15 years.
Moultrie-Colquitt County Development Authority voted unanimously this week to allow Community Development Partners Inc. a shot at developing a concept for how best to take advantage of the facility.
The authority purchased the 37,000-square-foot building, which has about 33,099 feet of usable space, for $450,000 with the intention of a project with Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.
No money was exchanged in the contract with Community Development Partners, and the authority is under no obligation to proceed with any project the development group recommends, authority President Darrell Moore said Friday.
The authority cannot sell the building during the time that the Jonesboro-based development group conducts its study, Moore said.
“They have six months to bring back a development plan,” he said. “When they bring it back to us we can either accept it or negotiate it. We can turn it down. If we don’t like it we can turn it down and walk away.”
Because different projects are better fits in different cities, Moore said, there is no way to say at this time what kind of recommendations could be made in six months.
A proposed project could include commercial, residential, educational, governmental or some combination of uses, he said.
Among the nearby projects that Community Development Partners is involved in is the Mitchell House building, located in downtown Thomasville.
The Thomasville development, in partnership with the Thomasville Downtown Development Authority, has condominiums and loft apartments upstairs, with retail shops on the ground level.
The development group also is in pre-development on the Bunn Building in Waycross, an $8.2 million project, and Fort Valley’s former high school building, being developed as a downtown campus for Fort Valley State University’s business school.
Moore said that if the authority and development group reach a consensus on a plan and decide to partner on a project it could take about two years to have occupants in the Friedlander building.
“We don’t know what it’s going to be,” he said. “He’s going to look at the building, look at the market, spend some time in downtown Moultrie (and) come up with a plan that they think could be successful in Moultrie-Colquitt County. They’ll come up with the highest and best use for that building.”
ABAC is still a possibility, perhaps scaled down from the more ambitious project that was envisioned, for a portion of the building, Moore said.
“I think we’ve done a good job with industry, bringing in jobs, but I’m certainly not a commercial developer,” he said. “It’s a large downtown space, and it’s going to take some creative ideas, I think, to utilize the whole space.”
An important element of any plans for the building is a separate intermodal transportation project adjacent to the Friedlander building. That facility will be located at the site of the former Holman Supply Co. building, which is being demolished.
Estimates for renovating the Friedlander building are at about $5 million.
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