MOULTRIE, Ga. — City Manager Pete Dillard said the old Sportsman building’s demolition and subsequent enhancements are expected to start quickly after the Moultrie City Council approved a loan bid.

The bid for $260,919.40 from the Revolving Loan Fund approved by the Department of Community Affairs, was approved by City Council at its June 2 meeting. 

CCH Construction Inc. in Thomasville will be handling the project, which is to create Sportsman Park, a walkthrough recreational area. 

The council tabled this topic on May 19 due to troubles with a liability release on behalf of the neighboring building’s owner. That has since been rectified, Dillard said.

“We feel like we’re in a good place with that,” he said.

The liability in question is a large crack in an adjacent building that could prove unstable once demolition of the Sportsman begins. 

As the Sportsman building has no outer walls — only a roof, front and back, Dillard said — the city looks to the neighboring building owner to take responsibility if the crack widens while the Sportsman is being torn down.

Also at the June 2 meeting, City Council approved two rezonings — 11.82 acres of land at 339 Doc Darbyshire Road and 3.40 acres of land at 15 25th St. — to bring in more apartments and uniformity, Dillard said. 

The 11.82 acres of land were moved to the residential planned unit development district from the agricultural district. 

It was zoned agricultural since no one ever used the land. Applicants W. Lynn Lasseter and Sonia Lasseter Wilcox are planning to build apartments there, thus causing the rezoning.

The other land had multiple tracts around Hudson Motors Body Shop to rezone, Dillard said.

“Over the years, they had just gotten chopped up and, frankly, a little disorganized,” he said. “The idea was to organize it and put the — the land owner requested it — commercial land next to commercial land and residential land for apartments over in a separate area.”

It was about cleaning it up and making it look uniform, Dillard said. 

Of the five tracts involved, tracts one and three moved from the single family residential district to commercial district; tracts two and five — from the commercial and single family districts, respectively — moved to the residential planned unit development district; and tract 4 had no change.

City council discussed having its June Second Saturday and opening city buildings to the public on June 15, but ultimately decided to postpone both until July — July 11 for the first and July 6 for the latter.