MOULTRIE, Ga. — In the big picture of marketing a community for business and industrial growth, availability of properties is most often the crux of the matter.

At the moment, the Colquitt County Economic Development Authority is marketing  a 51,000 square-foot building at Spence Field, commonly referred to as the “Hurst building.”

Hurst Boiler Co., of Coolidge, occupied that building for a short while. More recently, a metals fabricating company used it. It was constructed as a speculative building in the early 1980s. It was occupied initially by a company that manufactured greeting cards.

For the most part, it has been vacant.

“It’s a good building with a lot of potential,” said Darrell Moore, president of the EDA. “It’s concrete construction with 13 acres surrounding it that would allow for expansion.”

As well, the building is already equipped with utilities and has drive-in doors. Moore said the building can be readily modified to meet myriad manufacturing needs.

At the last EDA meeting, there was much talk about sprucing up the area around the building. City Manager Pete Dillard and County Administrator Chas Cannon said they would work on a plan to keep the area around the building manicured.

The Hurst building is the only vacant building the EDA currently owns. However, Moore said there are privately held properties that the EDA is trying to market.

Some 60 acres of land are available at the Citizens Business Park where Sanderson Farms is located off Quitman Highway. This property is on the south side of the park and is now being rented out as farm land with peanuts growing on it.

To the north side of the property are 50 acres of available space. However, a portion of that space will be taken up by a speculative endeavor called the “incubator project.”

This EDA development is designed in a shell form to allow new business to grow into. At the moment, preliminary layouts have been published but specific detailed designs are yet to come. EDA has applied for a federal grant that would cover much of the costs.

Recently, the EDA approved a resolution to accept a $1.8 million Economic Development Administration grant, should the application be approved.

The county’s EDA has already approved $1.5 million in Special Local Option Sales Tax monies to go toward this project. That approval paralleled hopes for at least a 50 percent federal grant to assist the project. A rough figure of $3 million is estimated for this development.