Commissioners vote to buy Whitepath Fab Tech building
Gilmer County now has a site and a building for a proposed recreation center. Now, planning can begin for renovation.
At a special called meeting Nov. 12, Gilmer County commissioners emerged from a closed session and voted unanimously to buy the Whitepath Fab Tech building on Industrial Boulevard for $3.4 million.
“This will be the basis for the new recreation center, and we have been working for options other than just building from scratch,” said Gilmer Chair Charlie Paris. “This will allow us to put something in place for substantially less that if we had built it from scratch. And, of course, the timetable will be much better for that.”
In his opinion, Paris said purchasing an existing building will amount to a substantial savings.
“I think we are going to save 40 or 50 percent by buying an existing building,” he said. “Plus, the location couldn’t be any better.”
Setting aside money and building as they became available may have taken the county 10 years or more, he said.
“This way we can do renovations in stages,” Paris said. “We will come up with an actual plan which will be more detailed.”
Funds to purchase the building came from money put back over the last several years for the recreation center project, including the 2026 budget, Paris said.
Once the renewed Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) begins in 2026, some of those funds will be applied to the renovation of the building.
“If we are going to use SPLOST funds for it, then we will have to have it done in that time,” Paris said. “At least paid for.”
He was quick to caution that the county may not issue bonds for the renovation. This option was added into the SPLOST to give the board flexibility.
“We put it in the SPLOST so we could if it looks viable,” Paris said.
Anything not included in the SPLOST proposal cannot be added in later, he said. This causes the county to be general and add a lot of options to list, just in case.
Paris said taking on debt concerns him and it took capping any debt to be paid off by the time the SPLOST lapses for him to agree.