Villa Rica’s new Health Department satellite office on Cleghorn Street is now on site, but it could be another month or more before the old location and other city-owned sites are demolished.

Besides the current Health Department building on East Wilson Street, the city is also planning to demolish the old fire department building on Church Street, an old water plant and an old sewer plant on South Wilson Street.

Once the old health facility is razed, the site will likely become a parking lot to add more parking to the downtown area.

The modular health facility, which was constructed offsite, was installed behind the Cleghorn Street Park last week. However, there is still much work to be completed before health officials can move out of their present location - including furnishing the new building, paving of the access road and parking lot and turning on the power.

“That’s (the power) probably the longest term item to be done simply because it is going to require the installation of some poles and that will take a little time for Georgia Power to get that put together,” Mabry said. “We are at a minimum, and I emphasize a minimum, three weeks out from that and the installation of water and sewer, which we we’ll be doing ourselves.”

The city also will be paving the access road and parking lot with in-house labor.

The progress on the new health facility appears to mark the end of the fight for those who would like to save the old building. Local historic preservationist Ernie Blevins has been on a crusade to save the old health facility because of what he said is its architectural importance as the oldest International-style building in the West Georgia area. Blevins has addressed the council several times the last few months, presenting them with petition signatures and surveys he has completed to show that there is enough parking downtown. Two weeks ago, he left for an extended period to work as a federal historic preservation contractor in New Orleans, but before leaving he took measurements of the old health facility so that it could be documented before it is demolished.

Before any of the four buildings marked for demolition are razed, the city is required by the state to complete an assessment of the presence of asbestos. A preliminary survey conducted was conducted last week and a firm is completing a formal survey this week.

“Once we receive those reports then we will evaluate what level of abatement is necessary,” Mabry said. “Just because the era in which these facilities were constructed, we think we’ll find some asbestos. The amount, we don’t know, but we think there will be some asbestos that will have to be abated.”

According to Finance Manager Larry Wood, only about $10,000 for equipment rental has been budgeted for demolition of the four sites. Budget amendments will have to be made to fund the asbestos assessments and any subsequent removal.

Regardless of the presence of asbestos, or the additional cost to remove it, the City Council will likely not be deterred in its stance to demolition the buildings.

“The mayor and council have directed us to move toward with the demolition, so we’ll just have to take whatever those reports discover and we’ll retain someone after we go through a procurement process to do the abatement for us,” Mabry said. “...After we’ve gone through that step and taken care of the abatement then we’ll be in a position to start the demolition. I think we’re a month to six weeks at least away from demolition, depending on how significant the abatement is on these facilities.”