Watch Now: Washington County looks to buy former Citi building in Gray

Washington County officials are moving closer to purchasing the former Citi Solutions Center in Gray.The County-Owned Property Committee voted last week to send a recommendation to the full County Commission on April 22 for the county to purchase the 81,316-square-foot building, located at 533 Sid Martin Road, for $4.5 million.Citigroup closed its operations at the site after developing a new business call center in Boones Creek in 2022."My recommendation is that we move forward and purchase this building," Commissioner Richard Tucker told his colleagues on Thursday. "You are not going to find a better location for that price."Officials say at least 15,000 square feet of the Citi building will serve as a new home for the Gray branch of the Washington County Library."I think this is too good of a deal, and if we keep on having these meetings and keep pushing things out, we're going to lose this deal," Tucker said. "We might say in a year or two from now that we really messed up when we had the opportunity to buy a building at $65 a foot, but we lost out, and then (we would) have to pay $300 a foot to build."Tucker suggested the county should begin work immediately to hammer out a contract with the seller and possible tenants before a May 7 deadline.Washington County Mayor Joe Grandy said other portions of the former Citi call center could be leased to community and governmental entities to help finance the debt to buy the facility.He said Northeast State Community College has already expressed interest in leasing the kitchen area of the building for its culinary program, and the First Tennessee Development District is exploring the idea of moving its headquarters in Johnson City to the Gray facility.The mayor said FTDD officials are looking at leasing at least 30,000 square feet of the Citi building."So if we purchase the Citi building, there is a high probability that we would have two good-sized tenants on day one," said Grandy, who was asked by the committee to prepare a proposal, which would include financing for the purchase of the building and schematics for leasing the facility.Earlier in the year, Washington County put out a "request for proposals" (RFP) to find existing space in the Gray area to move the library from its current location at 5026 Bobby Hicks Highway. At the same time, the 6,000-square-foot building now housing the library branch was put up for auction online.Willie Shrewsbury, the county's purchasing director, noted that the RFP process netted just one proposal from Mark Larkey of RBM Properties Group for either the purchase or lease of the building at 533 Sid Martin Road."There is a limited number of people who can offer the space that we were looking for," Shrewsbury said. "I hate that we had only one proposal, but it happens in many cases."At the same time, Washington County officials have received a high bid of $1.7 million for the Gray library property from Stewart Taylor, a Kingsport businessman and developer. Under a resolution passed by the commission, the sale of the current library property is dependent on the county securing a new location for the Gray branch."We've got good money for the library," Tucker said. "A lot more than we thought."Commissioner Jodi Jones, the chair of the property committee, told her colleagues that they should continue to do "due diligence" in seeing that the library and county taxpayers are treated fairly in the deal."The challenge, of course, is that we weigh the risks versus the benefits," Jones said. "It is the public's money."