More on the PSA’s plans for Red Carpet Inn property

Pulaski County logoBy MIKE WILLIAMS

The Patriot

The Pulaski County Public Service Authority has purchased the old Red Carpet Inn property on Old Route 100 outside Pulaski for the site of its newest convenience center.

Jared Linkous, Executive Director of the PSA announced the move Monday night during the February meeting of the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors.

The old motel will be demolished by county crews and the site will be transformed into the PSA’s third convenience center.

Linkous explained that the PSA has for some time operated three convenience centers spread across the county (Dublin, Fairlawn and Pulaski on Dora Highway).

At the start of the year, when the Town of Pulaski went in a new direction for garbage pickup, the PSA lost the Pulaski center on Dora Highway, and Linkous said a search has been ongoing to find a way to “plug that gap” in convenience center service.

That search led the PSA to purchase the old Red Carpet Inn site just off Routes 99 and 100 outside the Town of Pulaski.

He said the PSA has been in the process of cleaning that site up and is having lead and asbestos tested to determine if they will need to do an asbestos abatement process or go straight into the tear down.

He said if an abatement process is required after testing, a third party will be brought in for that work before demolition begins.

“It’s exciting news to share,” Linkous said, noting how the Red Carpet Inn site has fallen into disrepair in the last several years.

Linkous said in the 12 years he has been with the county the property has changed hands three times.

He explained the motel historically has operated its own sewage treatment system, discharging into a small stream near the site. He said each time the property has changed hands, the discharge limits have changed resulting in the motel no  longer being able to operate its treatment system.

He noted that area does not have county sewer available.

“People buy this property at auction, then find out they don’t have sewer service there and then it goes into a period of just sitting there, with lost revenue on the tax side, then they sell it again. That’s gone on two or three times now,” Linkous said.

He explained the PSA, five or six years ago, had received two allocations of a half-million dollars for improvements to the Fairlawn and Pulaski convenience centers to make those sites resemble the Dublin center.

“The Dublin Convenience Center is the PSA’s goal for what our convenience centers should look like,” Linkous said.  “We have high expectations for what the convenience centers will look like in our community and for them to really serve our community much better.”

Linkous said about half the residents on the south side of Claytor Lake will be able to more easily access the convenience center at Red Carpet Inn after crossing the Lighthouse Bridge.

“We’re excited about it. We think it’s a great opportunity. We think it serves many purposes for the community.  It takes a building that has been deemed by our building officials and code department as an unsafe structure. It has been boarded up once by the county, and we were faced with a situation in which that was going to have to be done again,” Linkous said.

Like the centers in Dublin and Fairlawn, the new one on Old Route 100 will be available for PSA customers to bring their large items and brush.

The PSA is developing a new bar code system, which will allow only PSA customers access to the sites. The bar code will be on PSA customers’ bill.

Linkous said the convenience centers are funded totally by the PSA’s residential customers.