Copperas Cove EDC demolishes former county annex

By LYNETTE SOWELL 
Cove Leader-Press 

The building located at 201 S. 2nd St. has been demolished by the Copperas Cove Economic Development Corporation. 
Work began on Wednesday morning to rip down the 6,100-square foot structure, which had been built in 1957. It was formerly the location of the Coryell County Annex, which was home to the offices for the county tax assessor/collector, the justices of the peace and courts, and had also housed the Copperas Cove location of the Texas Department of Public Safety’s driver’s license office. That office was closed by DPS in March 2017. 
The former Coryell County annex was gained by the CCEDC via a property swap approved in May 2017 between the city of Copperas Cove, the CCEDC, and Coryell County. In return, the county was given the CCEDC’s former location at 210 S. 1st St. The move also gained the EDC $37,510 for the property exchange, the difference between the 2016 certified values for the EDC building and the County Annex on South 2nd Street. 
Jonas Titas, the executive director of the EDC, said the action of demolishing the building was the EDC following through with previous plans of the city. 
“The intent was that site might be the future city hall or other potential municipal use. So we have followed through with that in good faith,” said Titas. “There are no imminent plans for the city to use that building, but when we had the building it was unfortunately becoming costly to maintain and we could not use it as an EDC building. It would have cost way too much to renovate it.”
Titas said after weighing the options, the best they found was to take it down, to keep the agreement they had with the city and county. 
In the meantime the site will be available for city use, Titas added. 
“We are also in the process of exploring other temporary and permanent uses for that site. It’s open for any community organization that would like to use it for events. We are going to have it cleaned up and safe. We’re going to present a couple other options to our board, if the chamber or city would like to use it for markets or events. Would that be a site for a community garden, potentially?”
Titas said the plans are to keep it neat and tidy. Down the road, if the EDC were to sell the property, they could work with any potential buyer for the property.