Mold removal said to cost $450,000 or less

But at the end of a committee meeting about the courthouse renovation project, Barrow County Commissioner Larry Joe Wilburn said he wants the four-story office building razed.

“I think it ought to be torn down,” he said.

Architects Ben Carter and Joe Watkins of Carter Watkins Associates Architects Inc. said it would be much more expensive to replace with a new structure the 40,000 square feet of office space inside the annex.

However, Wilburn said the county only spent $1.5 million to build the new animal control facility and could build space for the Sheriff’s Office near the new detention center off Barrow Park Drive.

Over time, he said, all of the county government’s functions should be consolidated at the same complex just off Highway 211, where the new courthouse, jail and animal control facility have opened over the past two years.

“People have got to run all over Barrow County to hunt for things,” Wilburn said. “They can’t find the tag office. They can’t find the sheriff. We’ve got 140 acres up there and I think everything ought to be put up there. We need to centralize things. With that $4 million, we could do a lot of centralization.”

Sheriff Jud Smith said Wednesday morning that while he is open to all suggestions – and he too would like for his operations to be consolidated – he would prefer for that to happen in the restored and renovated courthouse annex.

For the full story, see the March 16 issue of the Barrow Journal.