Prattville holds Saturday morning meeting to consider fate of co - WSFA.com Montgomery Alabama news.

Prattville holds Saturday morning meeting to consider fate of cotton mill gin

There are more questions than answers about the proposed renovation of the old cotton gin mill property in downtown Prattville. Business owner Stephen Brooks hopes the plan is still on.

"If they were to go through with this it would have a tremendous impact on the city," said Brooks who co-owns a holiday gift shop with his wife.

But now there are questions whether anything will happen at all.

"It's moving a lot slower than we had anticipated," Prattville mayor Bill Gillespie conceded.

In fact, the city council has called a special meeting for Saturday morning, a meeting that will take place at the Prattville Area Chamber of Commerce. We're told the purpose of the meeting is to hear a proposal by Pratt Mill Partners about its ideas for the property. Council members will then take a tour. There is a fear the buildings are getting worse considering the amount of rain central Alabama has gotten this year.

"Those buildings are old and anytime you have water pouring into them that's not good," said Gillespie.

This weekend's meeting is taking place despite the fact that Burke Lambert, one of the owners of Longstreet Capital in Georgia, talked of sweeping plans last summer of turning the 160 plus year property into loft apartments.

"You can't recreate something like this," Lambert said at the time in an interview with WSFA 12 News.

WSFA 12 News was unable to reach Lambert through his cell phone and office in Atlanta. For now Stephen Brooks is still holding out hope a huge part of Prattville's history will be saved.

"I am choosing to be a glass half-full kind of person about this," said Brooks.

Either way the council will have a better idea after the meeting tomorrow morning which way this project is going.

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