VALDOSTA —
The iconic smoke stack will still tower over the City of Remerton, according to local officials, but the majority of the historic Remerton Mill complex will be demolished and converted into a park after the City Council gave the mill’s owners the go-ahead for demolition during Monday evening’s regular session.
The mill’s ownership group simply wants relief from its obligations to the property, and Remerton Mayor Cornelius Holsendolph said the restoration of the mill is just too large of a project for a city of Remerton’s size.
“Our biggest concern was the financial feasibility of us moving forward with buying the mills and putting in the necessary work to restore it,” said Holsendolph. “It’d be great if the Save the Mill committee can find a way to save it. But as a small town, we just don’t have the money to take on the project.”
The agreement will keep the wrecking balls and salvage truck away for 45 days, said Holsendolph who stressed that the smoke stack will remain intact. He also said that the site will be home to a new park, which will feature a walkway that leads straight to the tower.
The ownership group had presented a request to demolish the mill site in June of this year.
Local historians and lifelong citizens of Remerton breathed a sigh of relief when council members accepted an appeal to push the final demolition vote to September, as it afforded them a few more months to compel the owners to save some of the structures on the mill site.
Joe Tillman, spokesman for the Remerton Mills LLC and part owner, said the group desired to cut its losses and completely demolish the mill site when he spoke before city council in June. He claimed that the buildings are structurally dependent upon each other in a way that the entire site had to be leveled.
Tuesday’s decision was a compromise of sorts, as it essentially lifts the bulk of the mill’s financial burden from the ownership group, which stated that it had worked with more than 20 developers to work on a feasible plan for restoring the site. The decision also leaves the City of Remerton with a hallmark from its historic past.
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