Wayne Water District opens new building
By Steve Herring
Published in News on August 27, 2013 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Wayne Water District opened a new office at 3600 Commercial Drive as part of a $2.2 million project that just wrapped up.
Wayne Water District, a cooperative of five sanitary districts, has completed a $2.2 million project that includes a new office on a 20-acre site at 3600 Commercial Drive.
"The five districts that make up the Wayne District basically cooperate to share administrative overhead," District Manager Steve Hamilton said. "Those five districts jointly own this building. It was in the neighborhood of $2.2 million. That includes 20 acres of land inside the city limits of Goldsboro so there is plenty of land for the district in the future.
"The office is not tremendously oversized, but we have a few extra offices where we should be able to handle everything into the future. But when we made the move, we were able to add the drive-through for customer convenience, a dropbox, which we didn't have at the hotel, and fairly convenient parking. Parking was an issue in downtown Goldsboro."
The office had been located on the second floor of the old Waynesborough Hotel since the mid 1990s.
"It was a good deal for the district because the rent was inexpensive," he said. "The rent included all utilities. It was a good deal for the districts, and that was one reason they were able to accumulate the cash necessary to pay cash for this site."
There was plenty of room in the old hotel, but the layout was not the best suited for the business' operations, he said.
"The amount of space, other than the storage space upstairs (here), is almost identical," Hamilton said. "It is laid out to suit our needs. There is a whole lot more parking, and customers don't have to fool with stairs. Everything is all on one level.
"It (hotel space) wasn't functional for the way that we actually did business. The amount of space available for our customers to come in and stand was small. There were quite a few times when they had to line up down the stairs because there was no room."
The district had been planning for the move since about 1997, and had even looked at purchasing the old Progress Energy building, but again layout was an issue, Hamilton said.
Also, the districts wanted a "little more land," he said.