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Small city, big dreams: Peach County faces problems with hotel development

In July, Fort Valley Mayor Barbara Williams announced the city's plan to build a three-star hotel, convention, and entertainment center in place of the former Peach County Medical Center.

In July, Fort Valley Mayor Barbara Williams announced the city's plan to build a three-star hotel, convention, and entertainment center in place of the former Peach County Medical Center.

Months after the announcement, the groundbreaking ceremony hasn't happened, and the estimated $15 million project remains little more than a goal for the future.

Yvonne Thomas caught up with Williams and county commissioners to find out what's standing in the way of this small city's big dreams.

It's a small city with a big redevelopment plan on paper.

Fort Valley mayor Barbara Williams envisions building a three-star hotel on the site of the closed Peach County Medical Center.

On February 16, Williams and all five city council members signed a resolution supporting the project.

"We've committed to the Mayor and the City of Fort Valley to hire locally when it comes to contractors and subcontractors, when it comes to building what actually gets built here," said Kevin Hanna with consulting agency The Donaldson Group.

The plan originated with Hanna's agency, and he spoke to us about the plans in July, but months later, the blueprints changed.

Williams says they scaled back, and now, they are planning only a hotel and movie theater.

They scrubbed the entertainment complex from the design.

"We have negotiated with no contracts signed yet, but we're negotiating with a man from Davidson, North Carolina to build the movie theatre," said Williams.

Since announcing the plan six months ago, the city has not hired a contractor or signed any agreement with a hotel chain, and the groundbreaking scheduled for Fall 2017 never happened.

"We would hope that this would be further along than it is," Williams said.

But there are several challenges in bringing this vision to light.

"The building itself is unusable. It takes a lot to actually bring it up to code if we were going to do anything with it," Williams said.

According to a feasibility study from the Middle Georgia Regional Commission, the building would need to be torn down or remolded because of asbestos inside.

Williams believes that would cost the city $300,000, and it's money that they don't have.

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