Overton Looking To Maximize Life Of Old Annex Building Through Sale

Overton County wants to maximize the use of its annex building through its auction.

County Executive Ben Danner said that many Overton residents have a special connection to the building from its previous use as a hospital. For that reason, Danner said the County wants to ensure it’s put to good use.

“The building will run down if it’s sitting there and we’re not using it,” Danner said. “So I hope there’s some, two or three different ideas people have had, maybe some apartments, maybe some different offices, maybe some retail out of that building.”

Danner said that the county got 40 plus years of use from the building and that there are plenty of other options out there. He said they decided to sell the 32,650 square foot building because it didn’t make sense for the county to pay utilities at a building they weren’t using and that it would be better utilized if another business prospect used the building.

Danner said they are exploring using the money from the sale towards a new community center building in the Monroe area.

“We’ve got a lot of grants that have helped us,” Danner said. “This community center, we were just talking about UT Extension, most all of that is grant money. And that’s turned into a wonderful facility. And we’ve got kids even in high school that play basketball over there, I’ve got kids doing archery. They’ve got several things going. Anytime we can do to keep kids something to do.”

Danner said that it’s important to the community to see the building get used as well.

“Anybody that was born in Overton County in 1974 was born in that hospital,” Danner said. “I mean everybody would like to see us keep it for that reason. But financially, it’s just not the best move for us to pay for utilities and everything for us to sit there. But I hope somebody that buys it and does something where people can still go in there(…) I hope it’s something that the public can still use it. There’s a room down the hall from me that has a window and that’s where the babies were at and stuff, and that’s where people would say ‘That’s where my kids were born.'”

Danner said they’re hoping to gain some $100,000 from the sale of the building. He said that they could potentially put that money into the general fund to offset some revenue losses.