Current building

Colony Bank wants to raze the old ice house/market on the corner of Second Street and Central Avenue and had intended to build a structure incorporating elements of the old building, such as the light tower and the curved block glass window. The Tifton Historic Preservation Commission OK'd the plans in May, applauding the bank for striving to maintain the look of the old building.

Proposed building that DNR nixed

But the state DNR put the brakes on that.

"Under the state guidelines, we can't go back and make it look like the market building," Marsh says. "They said that If you're going to go back and mimic the existing building, why tear it down?" 

Marsh says the state is involved because the bank is part of the FDIC -- Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. -- and because the old ice house/market building is downtown and on the National Register of Historic Places.

 

"What we do on a local level is irrelevant " regarding local approvals, Marsh says. "They trump all of that. ... The state said if we built the building based on our current plans, it 

Bill Marsh

would stand out. It would take away from the historic esthetics of downtown. "

 

When contacted, the state DNR's Historic Preservation Division responded to the Tifton Grapevine with a written statement: 

"A draft Memorandum of Agreement for this project, drafted by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation with input from Colony Bank and our office, is currently under review," writes Dr. Karen Anderson-Cordova, program manager for environmental review and preservation planning for the DNR division.

"One of the requirements proposed in the Memorandum of Agreement is that the design of the new building be compatible with the historic district and that our office be given the

opportunity to review the new design prior to construction. At this time, the MOA is still a draft and has not been finalized. Colony Bank is reviewing the draft MOA, and once all parties agree to the terms and sign the agreement, the FDIC  will file it with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and the project can proceed under the parameters of what is finally agreed upon in the MOA," she writes.

Colony Bank is hoping to get the MOA approved in "just a few more weeks," Marsh says.

He adds that some of the state's "rules are completely outdated; their regulations are very much not business friendly," such as their restrictions about where parking will be allowed.