Repurposed school building will house municipal, county, state offices

HOLLY HILL — The vacated Holly Hill Middle School held a few pieces of obsolete furniture and countless memories when Orangeburg County purchased the property in 2007 for $10 from Orangeburg Consolidated School District Three.

It was the only school situated in the middle of Holly Hill, just on the cusp of the downtown area at 8423 Old State Road.

Now, after a $4 million overhaul, the facility has been transformed into a intergovernmental complex that is serving the public once again — and in ways that reinforce the town’s motto: “Proud Past, Progressive Future.”

“It’s been a long time coming,” Orangeburg County Council Chairman Johnnie Wright Sr. said.

“We’ve planned for this thing several years ago” and now the brick-and-mortar makeover has come to fruition, Wright said.

“Anytime you have a town, a county, a state entity and use federal money … and not duplicate services and use that same tax dollar to benefit the citizens with four different entities and not do it in four different places, that’s the kind of government we should all be striving to have,” County Administrator Harold Young said.

Young was referencing the multi-million-dollar investment to repurpose the former school into a facility that now serves as Holly Hill Town Hall and Police Department and where the county will offer an array of services to citizens.

In addition, the Department of Health and Environment Control’s Home Health Services occupy a portion of the building.

Young said county officials anticipate holding an official grand opening ceremony in mid-May during which the public will have an opportunity to tour the newly-renovated building and grounds.

A date for this event has not yet been announced.

In the mid-1920s, Holly Hill High School was located at the site. Eventually, with modifications and renovations throughout the years, it became Holly Hill Middle School.

The school closed in 2004 after the district’s two high schools merged into one — Lake Marion High School — and the middle school students and staff relocated to the former Holly Hill High School campus at 530 Hesseman Avenue.

Holly Hill’s administrative and police departments and DHEC’s Home Health services are currently operational at the site, but it will likely be another two weeks or more before an Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office substation, library and court services move in.

It’s been nearly a month since Holly Hill town offices moved to the new location, and it is “indescribable,” Holly Hill Mayor William Johnson said.

“This is such a step above where we came from,” Johnson said.

“The citizens are amazed at how the school has changed to what it is today,” he said. “Most of the people I’ve talked to couldn’t imagine that Holly Hill could have such a facility.”

But the project got off to a tough start.

Within months after the county acquired the property, the national economy tanked. The project was delayed, albeit temporarily.

Holly Hill allocated $500,000 from its share of the county’s capital projects sales tax toward the construction of a new town hall.

“But you wouldn’t get much of a town hall for $500,000,” Young said.

At one point, some members of Holly Hill Town Council urged the mayor to “pull our money out (of the joint project) and do something else with it.”

“But we couldn’t have ever done anything that we could be as proud of as I am of this place,” Johnson said.

Young said DHEC promised to give $500,000 toward the project, but to date, they’ve given a total of $300,000.

“That was during the economic downturn, but we’ll hopefully be in discussions on getting the rest of the funding,” he said.

The balance of the project, approximately $3 million, is through grants and loans through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the county administrator said.

Debt service payments begin this year, Young said, noting that the county has at least 20 years to pay back the money borrowed from the USDA toward the project.

Once the renovation got underway, crews experienced a some setbacks.

“One of the obstacles was removing asbestos in the building,” Young said.

The asbestos was confined to the gymnasium and a couple of classrooms, which were demolished after specialty asbestos abatement contractors removed it, he said.

Prior to renovating the school into a municipal complex, county leaders held community meetings. Several citizens said they wanted the gymnasium to remain intact; however, the age of the facility and the asbestos meant the structure had to come down.

Young said the gymnasium contained a basement so when crews demolished the structure, they were also tasked with “digging out the basement.”

The workers then had to fill the area in “such a way to make sure it was structurally stable so you would not have any sinkholes … that contractor did a phenomenal job,” Young said.

He described the project as a “game-changer for the town of Holly Hill.”

And in about six months, taxpayers can expect to see the project’s maximum potential. By then, all facets of the facility will be fully operational.

Young said there will likely be three new jobs announced for the site: a core librarian, a clerk at the OCSO substation and an ombudsman — a person tasked with listening to the public’s concerns and conveying those concerns to county officials.

He said most of the employees are simply transferring to the site from other offices.

Additional changes are planned in the near future.

While the Holly Hill Depot has been used in recent years as the venue for town council meetings and court, the intergovernmental complex has its own courtroom, which town officials expect to use beginning with the Holly Hill Town Council meeting on May 5.

Johnson said the depot will likely be used for a museum, but those plans have not been formalized.

“I’ve always been told the depot was put there to be a museum. We’re missing that piece today,” the mayor said.

He said the depot will continue to “be rented (out) as we rent it today.”

Johnson said of the new intergovernmental complex, “The county owns most of it, but it’s in my yard and I take pride in it and want it to be the best it can be.”

Contact the writer: mbrown@timesanddemocrat.com or 803-533-5545. Follow on Twitter @MRBrownTandD.