The Greensboro City Council plans to approve a contract to tear down a Guilford County building at the Tuesday, Oct. 19 virtual meeting.

The City Council is expected to approve a contract with D.H. Griffin to demolish the old Guilford County Department of Mental Health Department building at 201 N. Eugene Street on the corner of North Eugene Street and West Friendly Avenue.

The building has been occupied by the Sandhills Center since it took over the mental health responsibilities for Guilford County.

While the building has been used by Guilford County, Greensboro has actually owned the building following a complicated land deal between Greensboro, Guilford County and the Carroll Companies (which also own this publication) in 2019.  Part of that deal allowed Guilford County and the Sandhills Center to continue to use the building for two years.

Also, as part of the land deal, which included the Carroll Companies providing a portion of land Greensboro needed to build the new Eugene Street Parking deck, the 2.6 acre lot at 201 N. Eugene was sold to the Carroll Companies with the condition that the building be demolished by the City of Greensboro.

Some longtime Greensboro residents still refer to the building at 201 N. Eugene Street as the Sears and Roebuck building, since it began its life as a Sears store after what was at the time a controversial land sale.

Demolishing the building will clear the site for a mixed-use development, Carroll Ballpark South, planned by Roy Carroll, the president and owner of the Carroll Companies, which will include a hotel, meeting and office space, apartments and ground floor retail.

When that development is complete, the North Eugene Street parking deck will be hidden from street view by Carroll Ballpark South along the frontage of North Eugene and Bellemeade streets.  

When Carroll Ballpark South was announced in 2019, the estimated cost of the project was $140 million. Carroll has completed Carroll at Bellemeade, catty corner from this project, with a Hyatt Place Hotel and 289 apartments with amenities that include a roof top swimming pool overlooking First National Bank Field, the home of the Greensboro Grasshoppers.