-David Crowder, WRGA News-
We know why a proposed data center project at the Battey Business Complex was withdrawn.
Rome City Attorney Andy Davis told the Rome-Floyd County Development Authority on Tuesday that he had a chance to speak with council and another representative with Atlas Development.
“The Battey property had been put into the queue and got moved down further in the queue with Georgia Power,” Davis said. “So, it was going to be 3 to 4 years before Georgia Power expected that they would be able to do power if there was going to be a data center there. So, that was beyond what the 19-month due diligence was in the process, and so they realized that that property was not going to be able to be offered as a data center.”
Since Georgia Power is the only power utility in the City of Rome, there was not an opportunity for Atlas to work with another provider.
Development Authority chair Jimmy Byars said that the site off Division Street in West Rome is an asset, yet a challenge.
Eleven years ago, the city, the chamber of commerce, and the development authority conducted a study to see what could be done with the former Northwest Georgia Regional Hospital site.
However, a lot has changed since then, and the buildings on the property are now in disrepair.
“There’s really not any building that is savable,” Byars said. “We were really fortunate for Senators Ossoff and Warnock, who had gotten a grant to tear all the buildings down. I think during the last meeting, we went to the bidding process to get a demolition contractor to tear everything down. We voted to award a bid. There were three top bidders, and the other ones have challenged the bid process. So, we have not been able to move forward with tearing it down. We anticipate that will get resolved quickly.”
Byars told the authority that once the bid is approved, the demo could take 6 to 8 months.
“We don’t think we have enough money to tear down the whole site, so we’re going to have to figure out how to get some more money to keep tearing it down,” he added. “They broke the demolition into three stages. We think we have enough money to tear down two of the stages, and then we have to figure out what we do. Our development authority does not have an unlimited budget. We can’t go out there and start building buildings. We’ve got to be conscious of how to develop this within our budget.”
The property remains zoned heavy industrial, and it must be used for job creation.
