Richmond County has agreed to request that the eventual buyer of the old administration building in downtown Rockingham donate several features of the building to the Richmond County Historical Society.
The building, located on South Hancock Street, will go up for sale in a sealed bid auction at 2 p.m. on Nov. 25 through Iron Horse Auctions. A sealed bid sale means that the potential buyers will not see each other’s bids. The highest bid will go before the Board of Commissioners for approval.
In November 2017, the Richmond County Board of Commissioners approved a request from Dr. John Stevenson, president of the Historical Society, to have three New Deal-era oil paintings, two bronze lanterns on the outside of the building and at least one segment of the Art Deco sandstone trim at the top of the building donated to the Historical Society to be preserved when the building’s future was determined.
Stevenson was not aware of the decision to put the building up for sale, and said when he noticed activity outside he contacted County Manager Bryan Land for an update. Stevenson said that Land agreed to pass along his request for the items of interest to whoever ends up buying the building.
“When you sell it you can’t tell them what to do with it … We have to wait and see who buys it and how they plan on using it. You never know what someone has in mind,” Stevenson said. “The county will make the request and hopefully we would be able to talk to (the buyer) from a Historical Society perspective.
“Hopefully whoever purchases it will honor our request.”
Land could not be reached for comment Monday or Tuesday because he is out of town, according to Dena Cook, county clerk. Responding to questions about the county’s confidence that a buyer will comply with the request, Cook said, “The board approved items will be given to the Historical Society if the items are able to be removed.”
Stevenson said the Historical Society is not interested in preserving the building itself because it has no historic value.
“Nothing historic occurred there, no famous speech (was given) or person died there … The architecture from that time is the only thing of interest,” Stevenson said.
The building was dedicated in 1934 and has served as a post office and later housed the Richmond County administrative staff. They began moving into their new building at 1401 Fayetteville Rd. and the building maintenance staff moved the last of their items from the building last week.
Over the years, the building fell into disrepair. Its cooling system was installed in 1963 and the Daily Journal reported in 2017 this system is far from being in compliance with current regulations. Stevenson said at the time that the issues with the building include that it is not handicap-accessible, it was made with asbestos, all of the electrical work in the building needs to be redone and it needs a whole new air conditioning system, putting the cost of restoration in the “millions of dollars.”