Redevelopment of Water, Gas, and Electric building to begin again

(ALBANY, GA) – The City of Albany is moving forward again with plans to redevelop the old Water, Gas and Electric building on Pine Avenue into the Gordon Hotel.

After discussions and planning over the previous few years, city commissioners have a new timeline for the downtown building.

“It would have already started if it hadn’t been for a little thing called COVID. But we will start this project in 2021, early 2021. And it’s projected to be completed in early 2022,” says Ward 3 Commissioner, BJ Fletcher.

The planned hotel would bring several dozen jobs into Albany, with the facility being given a budget of more than $13 million.

Commissioner Fletcher says that taxpayer dollars will make up a small portion of the thirteen million budget, but that it will be paid back.

She tells us, “I do want the taxpayers to know that three million dollars will be a loan from the city, and it will be paid back. We’ll make a little less than a half a million dollars off of that loan.”

With work on the Pine Avenue building set to start soon, many in the city, as well as the group developing the property hope that they can restore the building as well as make it the hub for the Good Life City.

Developer, Jason Benedict says, “I think this will really be the first of projects where the public and private can come together to deliver something that is unique to Southwest Georgia, and make it a destination, not just a utility.”

The redevelopment plan was approved unanimously by the Albany City Commission.