JPD gets five-year extension on Colonial Mart lease; Batte Furniture move still in the works

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - Jackson Police Department’s Precinct Four now has the option to stay at the Colonial Mart shopping center for another five years.

Tuesday, the Jackson Council approved entering into a five-year lease with Colonial Mart LLC to maintain the precinct headquarters there, at least until the city can finalize plans to relocate it to the Batte Furniture building.

“We talked with the current landlord of the building in which Precinct Four is housed. It was always our desire, and there was some... dispute as to whether some level of agreement could be reached, that we maintain (Precinct Four) there until Batte could be outfitted for our intended purposes,” Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said. “This provides an option to renew.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Jackson will be able to lease its current space at the 5068 Parkway Dr. center for the next five years, at $4,289 a month. If the city determines to cancel the lease before the five years are up, it would have to pay owners $1,000 for every year remaining.

Lumumba told the council that the decision to extend the Colonial lease did not mean it had quashed plans to relocate the North Jackson precinct to the former Batte Furniture building.

“We’re moving forward with the appraisal. Evaluations are being done of the Batte Furniture building,” the mayor said.

He told the council that even if the city closes on the building, it would still need time to get the facility ready to house city services. The mayor said that he hopes to locate the police precinct, as well as the Charles Tisdale Library there.

“Not only do we have to acquire it, we have to do the architectural design and do construction in the building,” he said. “We anticipate that will take better than a year to do so.”

Part of that effort will be installing the fiber-optic cable and hardware needed to accommodate the precinct’s communications.

The council was also expected to consider a motion to approve a 36-month term agreement for the installation of the cable and hardware, in part, to outfit the Batte building.

The three-story, 41,576-square-foot building, is located at 1010 E. Northside Dr. It has a selling price of just under $2 million, according to the Mississippi Commercial Real Estate Exchange.

The city has yet to close on purchasing the facility, Lumumba told the council.

Council members are split on whether they support relocating there. Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes said the move would help protect businesses along the interstate corridor.

“If we lose Highland Village and Kroger and these kinds of places because of crime and other things, it’s going to hurt this city tremendously,” he said. “We must start protecting that interstate because some bad people are coming through.”

Ward One Councilman Ashby Foote, meanwhile, is opposed to buying a new building when Jackson can’t maintain the properties it already owns.

The Charles Tisdale Library, for instance, is boarded up after years of neglect and vandalism. The Eudora Welty Library downtown, meanwhile, has been reduced to one floor on the orders of the State Fire Marshal. A recent visit there shows portions of the first floor are now roped off due to leaks.

A portion of the first floor of the Eudora Welty Library is taped off, while buckets and... — A portion of the first floor of the Eudora Welty Library is taped off, while buckets and garbage cans are being used to collect rainwater.(WLBT)

The Colonial lease extension was approved unanimously.

Stokes said he felt comfortable approving the lease extension because it would mean more time to get the former furniture store ready. Said Stokes, “As long as we have this location, we have time to renovate everything for Batte.”