Beaufort County taxpayers could be called upon to pay thousands of dollars to repair an industrial property built to attract an industry to the county but which has sat vacant for about four years, the county’s leaders have been told.
Quick Start II, a 50,000-square-foot structure built at the Beaufort County Industrial Park on speculation about four years ago, faces up to $15,000 in repairs to its roof in addition to a list of other items presented to the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners last week.
“We’re working diligently on these things,” Jim Spain, the county’s maintenance supervisor, told the commissioners. “We want to sell this building as quickly as possible if we get a potential client.”
“We can’t afford to let this building sit there and do no preventative maintenance,” he said. The county needs to “keep the integrity on it as much as we can,” he said, adding, “there were a lot of things that got overlooked on this project by a lot of people.”
The commissioners heard a report on the building’s needed roof repairs from Kelli Wilcox, principal engineer with Atlas Engineering of Raleigh.
Among her recommendations were installation of an emergency drainage system for the roof to bring the structure up to local building-code requirements repairs on all of the “minor distresses” on the roof and the incorporation of a routine maintenance program that would include a visual inspection of the roof at least twice a year.
Wilcox estimated the cost of the roofing repairs between $7,500 and $15,000.
Spain also presented a list of repairs to the building that included painting rusted handrails on the truck-docking station, resealing office windows to correct leaks and other, more costly repairs, such as replacing the failed grout on the exterior concrete panels of the building.
Commissioners said they hoped to recoup at least 50 percent of the cost of repairs from A.R. Chesson Construction, Co., the northeastern North Carolina firm contracted to build the structure.
But if a deal cannot be reached with the company, the county’s taxpayers could be forced to pay the entire cost of repairs from money appropriated to the Beaufort County Economic Development Commission by the commissioners in the 2011-2012 fiscal year budget, county officials have said.
The commissioners voted unanimously to go ahead with repairs to the building’s roof at a cost up to $15,000 and the other repairs sited by Spain while continuing to negotiate with A.R. Chesson Construction to see if the county can recoup some of those expenses.
The commissioners also voted unanimously to pay $7,555 in fees to Atlas.
The repair needs of the building and the county’s response to those repairs have been the subject of closed-door sessions at two recent meetings of the county board.
Quick Start II was completed in early 2008 at the Beaufort County Industrial Park off of Leggett Road just west of Washington at a cost of about $2.4 million.
Beaufort County contributed $879,000 toward its construction and obtained $982,000 and $400,000 in two loans from the N.C. Department of Commerce to fund most of the remaining costs of the building.
The loans were part of a revolving loan fund at the department and the county has since negotiated an extension on the terms of the loan with the final payoff for both — including a balloon payment on the $400,000 loan — set for 2015, according to Jim Chrisman, the county’s finance manager.
The first industrial shell building on the property, Quick Start I, sold within about 18 months of breaking ground for the structure. Completed just before the downturn in the economy, Quick Start II has not found a buyer.
One Fortune 500 company was reported to be looking at the building while it was being built. A committee determined the corporation was serious enough about buying the building that it decided to paint the building with that company’s colors — blue and white stripes ± in the hopes that might seal the deal.
It didn’t, and since then, the building has developed the problems that were made public last week.