{"id":3116,"date":"2013-04-24T12:42:21","date_gmt":"2013-04-24T16:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=3116"},"modified":"2013-04-25T23:48:01","modified_gmt":"2013-04-26T03:48:01","slug":"a-new-home-year-six-vlcia-2013-04-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/a-new-home-year-six-vlcia-2013-04-16.html","title":{"rendered":"A New Home! Year Six @ VLCIA 2013-04-16"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe Industrial Authority was very forthcoming\r\nabout everything about their new office purchase\r\nexcept who they were buying it from;\r\nthis was at the\r\n\r\n16 April 2013 Board Meeting<\/a>\r\nof the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority.\r\nThe seller turns out to be a household name hereabouts.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

New Office –Roy Copeland<\/a><\/H3>\r\n

\r\nChairman Roy Copeland talked about the at least five year process\r\nfor finding “a new home” for VLCIA.\r\n\r\n\"103<\/a>\r\nHe noted that before he joined the board they were considering\r\nbuying a property he and his wife own.\r\nHe and former Lowndes County Chairman Ashley Paulk looked\r\nat another property near the Courthouse.\r\nVLCIA even toured the historic Lowndes County Courthouse\r\nbut concluded it couldn’t be renovated for their purposes.\r\nJerry Jennett noted the search had gone on even longer than five years.\r\nCopeland said the parameters they had set were, as far as he recalled,\r\nsomewhere north of the new courthouse, between Ashley and Patterson Street,\r\nup to about Northside Drive.\r\nThey eliminated many locations due to space, parking, or expense.\r\nThey ended up with a property on Roosevelt Drive, the old Heritage Bank Building,\r\nwhich is now “a hub of economic development and construction activities”.\r\nHe noted each and every member of the board had been consulted numerous times\r\nand they had asked CPA Tom Davis to do an economic analysis.\r\nCopeland asked Davis to talk about that since “we have the newspaper and\r\nMr. Quarterman here”.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIt’s curious they didn’t look south of town, considering I saw Roy Copeland\r\ndown there in his role as President of\r\n\r\n100 Black Men of Valdosta<\/a> inspecting\r\na house 100 Black Men had bought and moved for use as their headquarters.\r\nPresumably VLCIA knows about this, since VLCIA is a sponsor of that organization.\r\nIf expense was an issue (as it should be) I suspect reasonably-priced properties\r\ncould have been found there.\r\nOprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios, Inc. located in a former Armory in the Near West Side neighborhood of Chicago and by doing so turned it into a desirable\r\nneighborhood.\r\nIt’s too bad none of the local leaders around here think seem to like that.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nHere’s\r\n\r\nPart 1 of 2:<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

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