After years of financial losses on the property, the Georgia Baptist Convention this week announced it’s planning to sell its conference center in Toccoa.
On Sept. 17, Stephens County Commission Chair Dennis Bell and County Administrator Phyllis Ayers met with executives of an as-yet-unnamed company that is putting serious consideration into purchasing the Georgia Baptist Conference Center.
“Most of our discussion was a lot about the history of what Georgia Baptist is to this community,” Ayers said shortly following the group’s tour of the Center. “They are here doing their due diligence, and we were part of that due diligence.” The conference center sits on the shores of Lake Louise. The meeting included questions from company officials regarding Lake Louise Dam, Lake Louise Road, and the status of Georgia Baptist’s request for the county to abandon the road, Ayers said.
Representatives of the company, who have requested that the company’s name be withheld during this stage of possible negotiations, also wanted to learn about the community, its governance, and the history of the Georgia Baptist Conference Center and its relationship to the community. The company CEO/COO, as well as a company board member and two other executives, met with Bell, Ayers, Georgia Baptist Conference Center Director Bill Wheeler, and a representative from the Georgia Baptist Mission Board/Georgia Baptist Conference Executive Committee, which is the official owner of the center and the land on which it is located, including the dam.
‘No choice’ but to sell
On Sept. 16, the Georgia Baptist Conference, in a post on the GBC’s publication, The Christian Index, announced their intent to sell the conference center.
“A review of audits from the last 20 years show the Georgia Baptist Conference Center in Toccoa operating at a loss over that time and left no choice but to place it for sale,” the article states. Georgia Baptist Chief Operations Officer David Melber delivered the news to Executive Committee members during their meeting Sept. 15 at Central Baptist Church in Warner Robins.
The audits revealed that from 2000-19, the conference center reported an average annual net loss of $543,000, or $10.86 million, during that span. Buildings that are 55 years old on average require $12.5 million in deferred maintenance. And the dam, which was created by businessman R.G. LeTourneau 80 years ago, needs $8.31 million in repairs.
“The hotel and grounds (were) sold to the Georgia Baptist Convention in 1963 for $235,000, with LeTourneau contributing $10,000 to the purchase price,” the GBC article states.
Ayes said that the company officials who toured the property on Thursday gave no indication of their plans regarding the road if the purchase were to be completed.
“They didn’t give any indication (of specific plans) or anything of that caliber, they were just looking at everything possible,” Ayers said, adding that the officials had requested to look at the engineering reports commissioned by both GBC and the county, and were in the “fact finding” phase. “They are seeing if there are any less costly routes; I think that is what I gleaned from it more than anything,” Ayers said.
Previously released figures show Stephens County’s portion of the cost to rebuild the road following completion of the planned repair and upgrades on the dam would have been $3 million. No figures were available on the entire cost of the project.
Although the company has chosen to remain unidentified at this stage, Ayers said the purchase, if completed, would lead to a use “very similar to what goes on there now.”
The GBC Executive Committee voted to suspend operations at the Toccoa conference center effective Sept. 30.
This article appears in partnership with ConnectLocal News
