City of Amory works to revive, repurpose community center

Half a year later, tornado recovery in Amory continues

AMORY, Miss. (WCBI) – Half a year later, tornado recovery in Amory continues.

The East Amory Community Center was one of the buildings that suffered catastrophic damage. City leaders are working on new plans that could have it rising out of the rubble and offering even more service to the community.

“Best case scenario, we’d do some kind of dome-type structure. It would not only give us something that would function in the community center side of it but also provide additional shelter in the event of another storm,” Mayor Corey Glenn said. “We don’t know just yet just to further qualify. We do have an architect hired. We’re gonna walk through those steps and see where we get with it.”

With about 70% of the building destroyed, they have a choice. To do a complete teardown or rebuild back onto it. Glenn said that the decision would go before the board.

“We’re going to go in there and completely evaluate it to see if the asset needs to come completely down,” Glenn said. “We’re hoping that it does. We intend to completely demo it and start back with a new facility. [We’re] still working through all the processes and protocols. We’re hopeful that the insurance company will go along with what our findings are.”

The community center served a vital role in the neighborhood hosting events and meetings regularly before the storm. Which is why the city wants it built back.

“Hopefully this coming week we’ll push out again for a bid cycle,” Glenn said. “Our first phase would be obviously to do a demo. We want to get that gone. People are still dealing with PTSD from the storm, and we need to clean that property up.”

Glenn said they hope to do the demo by the end of this year and walk through the rebuilding process by the start of next year.

“We’re excited about trying to come up with something new to help our citizens move forward for the next 50 or 60 years,” Glenn said.

Along with reviving the East Amory Community Center, the city will be enforcing codes on October 1 to have damaged property cleaned up. That way they do not affect the value of the surrounding properties.

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