Appraisal now in for NGRH property

A broker values the former mental hospital site between $6 million and $10 million and cites several potential uses.

An independent evaluation of the entire 147-acre Northwest Georgia Regional Hospital campus in Rome has put a broad range of value for the site. Executives with Savills Studley, a real estate firm in Atlanta, have estimated the value between $6 million and $10 million.

The 147-acre figure is higher than the 132-acre estimate which had been used for the last several years, because the new appraisal includes property outside the fences where a number of old ranch style homes that housed hospital personnel still sit.

The state currently has a bonded indebtedness of approximately $3.5 million on the property and is paying the debt down as well as maintaining the land and buildings at an expense of approximately $1 million a year.

The valuation lists a range of highest and best uses for the property including movie production, a college campus, research park, a residential rehabilitation center, potential manufacturing and a potential data center.

Greater Rome Chamber of Commerce President Al Hodge said it was good for the state to get the Savills Studley report, but going forward a building-by-building review and analysis to determine which buildings need to be razed and which buildings might be upgraded was also appropriate at some point.

The Savills Studley report indicates there is known asbestos in several of the structures and that other buildings may be found to contain it.

Rome City Manager Sammy takes the $6 million to $10 million valuation with a large grain of salt at this time.

“There are certainly some challenges to making the property more marketable and more usable,” Rich said.

The City of Rome had an option on the property for three years that ended June 30, 2017. During that time it received a report from Tunnel-Spangler-Walsh Design, working in conjunction with the Bleakly Advisory Group, indicating a variety of potential uses for the property — from advanced manufacturing, medical office

space, retail and even some residential uses.

That report projected redevelopment could create as many as 3,000 jobs with payrolls approaching $100 million. The conceptual redevelopment plan was projected to provide somewhere between $1 million to $1.5 million in annual property taxes. It estimated the cost of redeveloping the old hospital property could range from $9 million to $22 million

“We have marketed it, but without

a price,” Hodge said. “We have communicated to many, near and far, public and private, its availability either as a total package or individual buildings.” Hodge said the most recent communication from the State Properties Commission seems to indicate they would prefer a single sale for the entire tract rather than breaking it up and selling it off in different parcels.

“We look forward to productive use for good jobs and a return to the tax base of the property,” Hodge said.