GCSU expands Public Safety and Emergency capabilities with purchase of Hwy 49 property

By Amanda Respess

G eorgia College & State University is purchasing a 15-acre property from the Baldwin County Schools District Board of Education in an agreement that benefits both institutions, as well as the greater Milledgeville community.

The property is the site of the former Georgia State Patrol office on GA Highway 49 West, adjacent to both GCSU West Campus and Baldwin County High School.

The sale and purchase agreement supports GCSU's University Master Plan goals for optimizing infrastructure such as secure parking and back-up IT servers for enhanced data security.

The primary use for the property, however, will be to augment the facilities and capabilities of the Georgia College Department of Public Safety. The former State Patrol Post building is approximately 8,000 square feet.

According to GCSU Interim Vice President for Finance & Administration Susan Allen, the university will establish a public safety operations and investigations headquarters with an emergency operations center, in partnership with the Baldwin County Sheriff's Office.

Allen said the 15-acre property will also be used for parking GCSU shuttles and emergency vehicles. Additionally, it will be a location for building in critical redundancies for information technology, including IT servers and data storage.

The Baldwin County Schools District sent a news release Tuesday, July 21, describing the sale of the property as "a major win for local students, taxpayer value and community safety."

GCSU has already begun pre-construction work to assess and prepare the site. Allen anticipates that the adaptive reuse plans for parking and public safety will be completed within the next 12 months.