By this time next year, the Lowndes County School Districtโs central office will be settled into a new home.
Superintendent Sam Allison said the district closed on a deal Tuesday to purchase the former Ecolab office building at 512 N. Lehmberg Road. Heโs hopeful the move from the current central office on Highway 45 South into the new building will finish before the 2025-2026 school year.
โThe building had been sitting there for a while, and weโd even had the discussion before that it would be a nice office building as far as centrally located within our schools,โ Allison told The Dispatch Tuesday. โYouโre probably less than 20 minutes from any of our schools (there).โ
Allison said the new buildingโs central location between LCSD schools was a driving factor for the purchase, along with the fact that theyโve run out of office space at the current central office.
The district paid $500,000 for the two-story, 12,000 square-foot building, though it was listed for $650,000, Allison said. The funds used for the purchase were from the sale of 16th Section land to be used for the Aluminum Dynamics facility site.
While 16th Section land is typically leased rather than sold, the Mississippi Secretary of Stateโs Office approved the sale because it was for economic development purposes.
โBut there was a stipulation with that money that it had to be used for new property,โ Allison said. โโฆ It just went into our 16th Section account, and it had to be used for land or real estate.โ
With the funds in place and the building available, the wheels started turning. Allison said the district will have to make a few updates to the building before moving in, including new flooring and paint.
โWeโll have to do some remodeling and some work to make it what we need it to be,โ he said. โItโs going to be our central office, so it sets up to put a board room there. โฆ Weโll add some offices probably. We havenโt nailed all that down, but itโs going to serve us well.โ
LCSDโs new office building is the third and final building sold from the former Ecolab complex on North Lehmberg.
Built in 1992, the Columbus-Lowndes Economic Development Authority leased the facility to Microtek Medical, a medical supply company, Golden Triangle Development LINK CEO Joe Max Higgins told The Dispatch. Microtek bought the building and accompanying complex in 2004, selling it to Ecolab in 2007, Hudspeth said.
Ecolab stayed there until it permanently closed Columbus operations in 2022.
Hudspeth, who handled the sale of each of the three buildings, said the first of the three was bought by Lowndes County in February 2023 to house the county coronerโs office. The second building was sold to an Atlanta investor in September 2023 for climate controlled storage.
The office building LCSD purchased has been on the market since 2021. Hudspeth said the building was under contract for six months in 2023 with a different prospective buyer, but the deal fell through.
โItโs a wonderful building,โ said Hudspeth, who represented both the school district and Ecolab in the sale. โIโm very pleased the county (school district) bought it.โ
The building sits on a 1.7-acre lot and has a two-story layout that includes a reception area, a waiting area, 20 permanent offices, several conference rooms, a media room and a kitchen. Allison said the facility will serve the district well.
โItโs a great location for us. โฆ And to be able to get that kind of location and even make updates on it and financially not really use much of our fund balance, thatโs great,โ he said. โWe were very fortunate that all these pieces came together.โ
Managing Editor Zack Plair contributed to this report.
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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