Ground broken on Laurel Welcome Center | Free News
Facility set to open next summer
Around one of the oldest affordable housing units, officials from the state, county, city, Laurel Housing Authority and Laurel Economic Development Authority gathered to make something old into something brand new.
They broke ground on the $1.5 million Laurel Welcome Center at 601 Leontyne Price Blvd. on Thursday morning. The project, which will remodel a historic housing unit into a welcome center, will take approximately 10 months to complete. Local architect Michael McKinnon designed the building. The city of Laurel gave $200,000, Jones County Board of Supervisors gave $200,000 and the 3-percent tourism tax and the funding from HUD will fund the welcome center, said Mayor Johnny Magee.
“The 3-percent sales tax will also help with staffing or whatever the welcome center needs as well,” Magee said.
It’s ideally located at the Interstate 59 exit, said Ailrick Young, executive director of the Laurel Housing Authority.
“It will be poised to provide visitors with a great first impression and will be the perfect place to bring visitors coming to the area,” Young said. “The center’s exterior will be fully restored as it was built in 1940 and will feature original copper porch awnings, gutters and downspouts with wrought iron porch posts. This building will be fully accessible with touchless entry in the rear.”
The interior of the center will be opened up to the second floor and enhanced with wood and materials salvaged from other buildings, paying homage to the original buildings, Young said.
“Naturally-lit display areas with information on locations of interest, notable people and cultural history of the area and our housing will enhance the visitors’ experience,” Young said. “One of the original units in the building will be restored to reflect the period when the units were originally occupied. This project is a work of many community partners working together to make this a reality.”
Magee said it’s good to see a plan come together.
“We have a lot of people coming to our city right now, a lot of visitors, and it may have something to do with a little television show that started here,” he said. “Some of the things that these visitors had expressed is that they needed access to restrooms, and they needed somebody to kind of guide them around the city of Laurel.”
Soon, everybody realized the need, and the Laurel Housing Authority found a creative way to solve the problem, Magee said.
“It takes a lot of people to put something together like this,” Magee said. “There are a lot of moving parts. A lot of people have to cooperate and work together. We want to thank the Jones County Board of Supervisors, Laurel Main Street, Ross Tucker of the EDA, Sen. Juan Barnett, Rep. Omeria Scott, Rep. Donnie Scoggins, Rep. Robin Robinson and Michael McKinnon. This is a cooperative effort and we are proud of it.”
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