Kroger building on auction block

By Sonny Turner
sonny@athensnews-courier.com

May 09, 2008 09:08 pm

— It housed one of Athens’ largest supermarkets for years and most recently was proposed as the building for a new city and county public library.
Now it’s going on the auction block.
Horton Auctions will sell the old Kroger building at South Jefferson and Forrest Streets to the highest bidder May 22. The 39,900 square foot facility will go with 6.9 acres.
The selling price is expected to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“It’s a good building and is ready to go,” said Horton Auctioneer Pete Horton. “We’ve had some interest in it. We have no idea what it will bring, but we’re going to soon find out.”
The auction is scheduled to start at high noon. The building is located in a B-2 business zone and is owned by Morgan Oil Co., of Cullman.
Hopes of purchasing and renovating the old building for a public library were dashed earlier this year when the proposal failed to get a reading from any of the five Athens City Council members.
It was earlier hoped that city and county leaders would work together to purchase the $700,000 building and the Athens-Limestone Public Library Foundation would raise the nearly $5 million to renovate the structure.
But the council studied its funding structure and determined the city just could not swing the purchase price, even with the county’s help.
Councilwoman Milly Caudle said she has not given up hope of a new library being built.
In a city-county meeting two weeks ago, Caudle suggested local leaders consider the library in the future.
“We are hopeful in the future that we can work together to give us the library that we deserve. The city of Athens simply doesn’t have the money. We’re going to have to expand and enhance our revenue stream to be able to fund institutions like this,” Caudle said earlier.
Librarian Susan Todd said a survey of library needs four years ago determined that they needed 38,000-square-feet to see the community through the next 20 years.
The 6.9 acres that goes with the Kroger building includes the parking lot and property just to the south on Jefferson Street.