Grant administrator hired for Rome’s Battey Business Complex abatement and demolition work
A grant administrator was approved Tuesday by the Rome Floyd County Development Authority Board to oversee work at the former Northwest Georgia Regional Hospital property on Division Street.
Eventually, most of the buildings on that property — dubbed the Battey Business Complex — will be demolished. A $5.1 million Housing and Urban Development grant will fund the environmental abatement and demolition of a portion of the buildings on the site.
“That isn’t going to be enough (to demolish the entire site) but we will move forward with what we have,” RFCDA President Missy Kendrick told the authority board.
The authority purchased the vacant 132.5-acre hospital complex from the state with $2.25 million approved by voters in the 2013 and 2017 SPLOST packages. The Rome City Commission rezoned the site for Heavy Industrial use.
The current plan is to begin demolishing the buildings on the western side of the property, nearest the rail access, and then move forward with the rest as funds become available.
One of the check boxes in that process is to hire a grant administrator. The authority had several bids on the process and determined that Allen-Smith Consulting offered the best price for the economic development experience the firm brings to the table.
That will cost the authority approximately $104,000 and those funds will come out of the grant. The firm will manage and distribute funds from the federal grant as well as oversee the bid process for contractors, Kendrick said.
“When you’re dealing with federal money you have to go through certain processes, that’s their expertise,” Kendrick told the board.
The site is currently in the environmental assessment phase.
They’ve completed the gathering of information and samples at the Battey site, Kendrick said during a July presentation. Once the assessment is done, they’ll begin using funds from the grant to start the cleanup and demolition of buildings to prep the site.
They plan to seek bids for the cleanup and demolition both separately and together, to see if they can come up with competitive pricing on the project.