Madison County’s Fine Finish program for mentally and physically challenged adults will soon have a new home.
Fine Finish will move from its current locale in a structurally flawed building off Hwy. 98, to a vacant commercial structure in Lakeview Business Park off Rock Quarry Road, not far from the red light in Danielsville.
The current Fine Finish building sits atop an old landfill and has had numerous structural problems over the years. And corrective efforts have failed.
“To spend more money on this (the Fine Finish building), you’re just spinning your wheels in mud,” said commissioner Stanley Thomas.
After months of negotiations, county commissioners voted 4-1 Aug. 25 to purchase three buildings at the business park for $550,000 from John Purcell. The structures will be purchased with cash from the county reserves. No financing is necessary.
Thomas, a real estate agent, negotiated the purchase on behalf of the county and agreed not to take any payment for the work. He said the initial cost of the three buildings was $1,058,000. The county offered $435,000. And after lengthy talks, the seller ultimately agreed to a deal of $550,000 for the three buildings and an extra lot. He said the package deal proved the most cost-effective for the county.
“Basically the buildings are new and in good condition,” said Thomas of the structures built in 2005. “… You start weighing one metal building being roughly $500,000 versus three buildings for that price. If you start singling them out, you’re going to pay probably close to that price for one building.”
Thomas said having the county own the buildings next to Fine Finish will be good, because it will mean the county can control what is in close proximity to disabled adults, keeping inappropriate things away.
The BOC agreed in March to move Fine Finish from the current building. Commissioner Pete Bond said the recent earthquake shows the importance of acting quickly to move Fine Finish clients to a more stable locale.
“We’ve had something happen in the last two days, the earthquake, that makes this very, very important,” said commissioner Pete Bond. “We don’t really know what’s happened underneath that (the Fine Finish building). And an earthquake, if you have one, you could have more.”
Commissioners also noted the possibility of methane gas from the old landfill seeping through cracks in the floor.
The county tried to renovate the Fine Finish building roughly eight years ago, suing the engineering firm that OK’d the site and receiving a $175,000 settlement. Roughly $135,000 of that settlement was spent on repairs.
County commission chairman Anthony Dove, who took office in 2008, said the county considered “pumping out material and putting in good fill or putting in “steel peers.” But both options were rejected because they were too costly.
“It was determined to cut some of the building off in the front and adding some in the back,” said Dove.
The chairman said the remediation work has proven ineffective, with new structural problems emerging.
“We consulted with people,” said Dove. “Nobody could give us any guarantees. And it looks like we’re fixing to repeat the same thing over and over again. That’s the definition of insanity.”
Dove said leaders searched the county for buildings suitable for Fine Finish, adding that the structures at Lakeview Business Park proved the most compatible with Fine Finish’s needs. He said the estimated total cost of a land purchase, engineering costs, construction work, grading and paving for a new Fine Finish building was $450,000 to $500,000.
Commissioner John Pethel provided the lone opposition to the purchase. He noted that the Lakeview Business Park hadn’t been listed on the tax digest for several years.
County chief appraiser Robin Baker confirmed that the property had been left off the books for several years after construction in 2005.
“That was before anyone currently in our office was here,” said Baker. “And when we found it (last year) we put it on the books. I don’t know why it wasn’t included.”
Pethel said Fine Finish needs to move, but he felt a lower-cost solution was possible.
“I know that Fine Finish has to have another facility to move to; that’s the bottom line,” said Pethel. “They’ve got to move out of there, but I don’t know how 99 percent of the people in the county are going to take us spending $600,000 for three buildings, when we only need one. I realize the cost of building the new building. All that has to be taken into account, but I’m unsettled on spending this much money for three buildings. What I’ve been hearing over the county is we need to find a different place without spending that much money. I don’t know what the alternative would be.”
Dove asked Pethel for specific proposals.
“I think that’s the key, that’s what we need to know,” said Dove. “I mean, if we’re not going to do this we need to make a specific decision right now.”
Thomas said he and others involved in the search for a new locale looked at numerous buildings, including John Pethel Jr.’s baseball facility off Hwy. 29. Pethel Sr. said he didn’t understand why Thomas would have looked at that building, adding that it wouldn’t be suitable for Fine Finish.
Thomas said several possible sites weren’t suitable for heavy traffic. He also said he knows some people won’t be pleased with the money spent on Fine Finish. He said after closing costs and other procedural fees, the cost will be around $565,000.
“The people who go to Fine Finish, they’ll never run that base at the rec park; they’ll never play one football game down on that football field; in all likelihood, they won’t use that library very often,” said Thomas, adding that anybody who thinks they can find a better deal for Fine Finish is welcome to try.
“I don’t think anyone wants to spend an awful lot of money,” said Bond before making a motion for the purchase. “Of all the plans put together so far, this is the best plan. The extra building could be rented out and bring back revenue to the county.”
Marvin White, chairman of the Fine Finish advisory board, said the move is a good one.
“It’s a nice facility and off the beaten path,” said White. “If people aren’t pleased, tell them to go up there and look at what the people are doing there. Some are carried out from there and go to work. Some work in Athens. They clean facilities. They try to make these people productive citizens. If anybody has a problem with it, they just need to go up there and look at it.”
