Massive construction, renovation projects top list of big stories for 2023

ALBANY — A renaissance for Albany’s downtown has been talked about, planned for and dreamed of for several decades, with plans for new streetscape designs piling up. But over the course of 2023, it seems that this could be the “A-Team” moment when the plan came together.

New projects hold the potential of tens of millions of dollars being plowed into the area, both private and public, in investment that will fundamentally transform the central business district with hotels and apartments and the relocation of the Albany Museum of Art.

The city has had its heart broken before, most recently with the development of a hotel/event center at the former Gordon Hotel building disintegrating. But this time looks to be different with commitments to and approvals of multiple projects.

Over the final half of the year hopes have been rekindled in a big way, not only by announcements of developers looking to pick up the pieces on the hotel project but several other high-profile projects as well.

Those projects bring the potential to preserve some of downtown’s historic buildings and repurpose them for the future.

Those include developing an apartment complex at the former Davis Exchange building, located at North Washington Street and West Broad Avenue, and renovating the St. Nicholas hotel building located two blocks to the north.

“All of these projects are moving forward,” Albany Downtown Manager Lequrica Gaskins said. “There’s a lot of good things going on in downtown Albany.”

Downtown Albany expects to announce timelines of various projects during the first quarter of 2024, she said.

In September, the Albany City Commission approved the sale of the former Gordon building at 132 Pine Ave., along with the former Albany Herald building across the street and two adjacent buildings, to CL Real Estate Development (CL RED) for development at a cost of $2 million.

The company has a $40 million plan to transform the former Water, Gas & Light building, which originally housed the Hotel Gordon, into a modern 120-room hotel and to renovate the Herald building, originally a department store, for use as an extended-stay hotel.

At the same meeting, the commission approved a loan of $3.2 million toward the estimated $20 million renovation of the Harlem District.

At the corner of Flint Avenue and North Washington Street, a privately-funded renovation project is scheduled to start in 2024 to bring the St. Nicholas Hotel back to life. Another historic landmark, the hotel opened in 1908 and was closed after a February 1940 tornado before a renovation and re-opening as the Lee Hotel that operated into the 1970s.

The roughly $6 million project is slated to include a boutique hotel with 26 rooms and will also house the “Harry’s” bar, named after a big band leader who was born there, a 3 Squares Diner as well as corporate offices for the restaurant chain.

The fate of historical buildings also was a factor in construction projects a short distance away, but in the case of Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital’s nursing training/residence facility, the result was the demolition of several old buildings that drew opposition from some quarters.

The proposal to demolish the former Albany High School/Albany Junior High building to make room for Phoebe’s Living & Learning Center was initially rejected in a 4-3 vote of the Albany-Dougherty Historic Preservation Commission. The body also voted against approval to demolish four other buildings that included two craftsman-style homes dating to 1919, a Victorian home built in 1903 and a 1960s-era medical building.

The recommendation was overturned by the City Commission and some members of the preservation commission initiated a lawsuit challenging that action that was ultimately decided in favor of the city in Dougherty County Superior Court.

The $40 million facility, a partnership between the hospital and Albany Technical College, will hold classroom space on the first floor and two floors of apartments. The construction will preserve the facade of the former school building in the location on North Jefferson Street across from the hospital.

Phoebe has an even larger project under way a short distance away from the new nursing center. The new Trauma & Critical Care Tower has risen in 2023 at the campus site just north of the hospital. The first floor of the new tower will house an emergency and trauma center. The current emergency center also will be completely renovated to create one large, seamless, advanced center.

The hospital is seeking to achieve Level 2 trauma center status and be better prepared to deal with the most serious injuries. That will represent a significant upgrade in trauma capabilities and serve a region that does not have that level of trauma care at any hospital in southwest Georgia.

“Ninety-eight percent of trauma isn’t gunshots or stabbings, which is what people think about,” Phoebe Health System CEO Scott Steiner told The Albany Herald in July. “It’s car accidents, that’s No. 1, then residential accidents are No. 2.”

The Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital board of directors approved in January a $140 million plan for the major set of construction projects that includes the new emergency and trauma centers, a new neonatal intensive care and a new intensive care unit.

Down the road from Albany, in Edison, there has been another transformation, but this one is political in nature.

The rural city with a population of about 1,200 people about 36 miles west of Albany was shaken this year with the revelation that there was no reckoning of how hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent, including $600,000 in COVID-19 relief funds.

The ensuing brouhaha ended the 30-year tenure of former Mayor Reeves Lane, City Council member Jack Johnson, and Tami Fincher, the former city clerk, beginning in August.

In the wake of those departures, Mayor Shirley Worthy and Councilman Curtis Adams were sworn in in October, and Demitric Jackson came aboard as city clerk. A full-time accountant also was hired to prepare the city’s books for audit.

More changes will come in January when Tia Ingram and Richard Worthy join the City Council.

Several of the new faces in government were on the other side of the podium from elected officials a few months ago, speaking out in meetings and budget hearings. The city’s residents have become more involved in government and through hosting fundraisers or clean-ups to help the city with issues it can’t afford or address on its own.

The new officials are trying to bring transparency to city government that Ingram said she didn’t believe existed before.

Among the top tasks for the new group is shoring up the city’s spending, for which the audits have been missing since 2018, and ensuring that the situation is not repeated in the future.

“I think what we’ve been through in the last 6-8 months will make us all work a little harder to know what’s taking place with the city and do what we can to avoid something like this from happening again,” Worthy told The Herald earlier this month.

Dougherty County also had a political shakeup during 2023, when the County Commission voted 4-3 on three occasions to fire Michael McCoy, the former administrator who had managed county operations for five years, one of those in an interim capacity.

The first attempt at the administrator’s dismissal came five months after the swearing in of new Chairman Lorenzo Heard, who cast the deciding vote in the majority after McCoy’s contract had been renewed for a year in December 2022.

After there were questions of whether the vote was taken legally on May 22 and McCoy temporarily again assumed his role, the commission again voted on June 5 to terminate him. Again, Heard was joined by Commissioners Victor Edwards, Gloria Gaines and Clinton Johnson. Commissioners Russell Gray, Anthony Jones and Ed Newsome voted in support of the embattled administrator.

In late June, the commission took a third vote — with the same outcome — after a nearly six-hour employee hearing requested by McCoy. The following day, Albany attorney Maurice King announced an anticipated lawsuit against the county.

A justification given for McCoy’s termination was the hiring of Barry Brooks, who formerly was employed as assistant to the Albany city manager, as assistant county administrator. Specifically, there was an objection to the hiring without input from the commission. The county’s charter gives the county administrator the authority to hire all employees with a few exceptions that do not include the assistant administrator.

In October, King announced that McCoy, now serving as Terrell County’s interim administrator, had his complaint officially filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, meaning that his $5 million lawsuit against the county can move forward.

While 2023 did not have state and federal elections on the ballot, elections for the Albany City Commission brought challenges to two incumbents who were re-elected to new four-year terms.

Mayor Bo Dorough had three challengers in his race — former commission member Henry Mathis, Albany businessman Omar Salaam and minister and businessman Antonio Screen Sr.

Dorough received 4,569 votes, representing 52.8% of ballots cast in the November election to avoid a runoff, with Mathis finishing second with 2,671 votes, or 30.88%.

In Ward IV incumbent Chad Warbington also held off two challengers without a runoff. Warbington, who like Dorough was first elected in 2019, earned a second term with 1,419 votes, nearly 60% of votes cast, to challengers Marion Gaines Jones’ 726 and Larry Harris’ 234.

In Ward I Jon Howard, the city’s longest-serving elected official, won handily, receiving 743 votes, or 74.23% of ballots cast, while challenger Lawrence McCrary earned 258 votes.

Howard, who was first elected in 1993, has drawn few challengers in his years on the commission. His last contested election prior to this year came in 2007.

During his tenure as Dougherty County Coroner, Michael Fowler has been proactive in trying to reduce the number of deaths, including a swimming program for kids to prevent drownings and violence-reduction outreach.

The coroner organized a Dec. 19 procession of 21 hearses that weaved their way through several parts of Albany where violence has been high over 2023 before they arrived at the downtown Government Center.

Accompanied by other first responders in an ambulance and police cars, it was the second time Fowler has organized such a procession of hearses.

The number chosen represented the 20 individuals killed in violence in the county this year and one for Nigel Brown, a 9-year-old boy who was fatally wounded by a stray bullet fired during a drive-by shooting while he slept on Aug, 8, 2021.

Of those taken by violence during 2023, all but one were killed by black-on-black violence, Fowler told The Herald.

Staff Photo: Phoebe