City Council to purchase vacant building for possible welcome center

HALEYVILLE - The  Haleyville City Council has voted to acquire a vacant Main Street building, with plans of turning the facility into a public meeting area or welcome center, pending the completion of a drainage improvement project.
“As you know, we are working to revitalize downtown,” Mayor Dr. Ray Boshell told the city council and those in attendance for the council’s meeting Monday, Jan. 5.
In fact, the city is working on taking officials out to tour the city and various zones identified for improvement under a major revitalization project.
Officials determined in their first tour, known as zone 1 of an ongoing 12-zone revitalization plan, that 11 buildings were vacant in the downtown area, Boshell had explained.
Will Walker, north Alabama region president of BankFirst, approached Boshell and the city with a solution that would fill a vacant building and hopefully start a trend to eventually fill the remaining vacant buildings along Main Street and the downtown area.
“Most of you are familiar with the downtown pocket park we have.  It’s been very successful,” Boshell stated.
“One of the issues is we have no bathrooms there,” Boshell added. “You have to come over to City Hall if you need to use the bathroom.”
Boshell said that various civic groups in the city need a central place to have meetings, so a vacant building next door to the pocket park, known as the Heart of Haleyville Park, has been considered for not only providing public restrooms, but as a place for meetings, as well as a welcome center.
The building, which has a front facing Main Street, has been vacant for a while and needs to be revamped, the mayor continued.
The mayor suggested the city purchase the building, contingent on if a drainage issue affecting one of the building’s walls could be repaired, Boshell explained.
“There is a wall that has a drainage problem, so what I would like to do (with) this motion is go ahead and purchase the building, contingent on (getting) an estimate on what it would take to fix that drainage problem.
“We’ve got to fix the leak because otherwise, we are going to have water coming in,” Boshell stated.
The city, Boshell added, is eyeing some estimates on repairing the drainage issue, where water is leaking behind a side wall of the building.
All council members voted in favor of approving the building’s purchase, based on this contingency, including Brian Berry, Todd Barton, Colton Corum, Cade Lewis and Boo Brooks.  The cost was $50,000.
“This will be a nice asset to the city,” Boshell said just after the vote. “And it’s not that much expense.”