The Catoosa County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday voted unanimously to approve a lease contract with the Department of Family and Children Services and begin renovations on the former Ringgold Telephone Co. building in Ringgold.

According to the agreement, DFCS agrees to pay $110,657 per year for a 15-year term with an option to renew for an additional 10 years. The county budgeted up to $485,000 to complete renovations to the building, according to Carl Henson, county finance administrator.

“It is almost an ideal situation,” said Catoosa County Board of Commissioners Chairman Bill Clark. “With the rental at $100,000 per year, the first five years we will pay for the renovations, second five years we will pay for the building and the next 10 will be pure gravy. The land will probably be worth four times what it is now when the contract comes to an end.”

Clark credited County Manager J.D. Byrd and Henson for negotiating the contract with the support of Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, who attended the negotiations in Atlanta.

The Catoosa County Board of Commissioners voted last September to sell or lease the former Ringgold Telephone Co. building it purchased for $575,000 in July 2003. The county originally planned to use the building as a county administrative building.

County officials decided instead to construct a new 15,000-square-foot administrative building near the Ringgold Post Office at an estimated cost of $1.5 million, now expected to cost at least $1.8 million after bids were opened last week, and T.U. Parks Construction Co. of Chattanooga submitted the lowest. Five other bids ranged from $1.9-2.1 million.

County officials cited previously unforeseen increases in building renovation costs for their change of plans for the new administration building.

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The county will receive bids for work on the parking lot of the building on April 7, and begin renovation work with the assistance of a construction crew from the Department of Corrections, Byrd said.

In other business, Tuesday, April 5 at the Catoosa County Courthouse Annex, Commissioners voted unanimously to approve a $226,865 contract with Talley Construction to raise a section of Twin Cedars Road under a Federal Emergency Management Agency flood mitigation program.

Assistant County Manager Ron Brown said that the county’s financial contribution to the project will be $57,000 and the funds will come from special-purpose local-option sales tax funds dedicated for roads and bridges.

Talley is expected to complete road construction by May 31, according to Chad Young, associate county attorney