The company that renovated the downtown Peoples Bank building contracted Wednesday to buy the old post office on Tarboro Street.

Self-Help Credit Union bid $70,000 for the building during an auction Wednesday morning. The deal could finalize in about a month, said Paul Brown, construction director for the Durham-based nonprofit organization.

Telegram file photo (ENLARGE)

Durham-based Self-Help Credit Union has bought the old post office on Tarboro Street in downtown Rocky Mount.

The company plans to replace the 76-year-old building's roof immediately, then completely renovate the building when it finds a tenant, Brown said.

"They're the best-case buyers for this building," said Rocky Mount Downtown Development Manager Ian Kipp. "They've got a lot of things working for them: experience dealing with these things, getting the tax credits, doing the rehab work."

Self-Help has invested more than $51 million in redeveloping buildings across North Carolina and Washington, D.C. It bought the Peoples Bank building in 1999, and tenants moved into the renovated building earlier this summer.

Dr. Stephen Kinard – who with his wife, Donna, own the post office building through a limited liability company named Propel Enterprises – had a Wednesday auction for both the old post office as well as a 77-year-old office building at 120 Howard St. they own. But the Kinards rejected the highest bid for the Howard Street property because it did not meet the minimum asking price of $75,000.

"There were several interested in buying the (post office) building, so for the playing field to be level, we thought the auction would be the way to go," Donna Kinard said. "We also wanted to bring some visibility to the downtown renovation projects."

The Kinards bought the old post office, which has a tax valuation of $277,358, from Edgecombe Community College in 2003 for $30,000, less than half of Wednesday's top auction bid. The 2003 sale included a protective agreement by which Preservation North Carolina has the right to first refusal on the building, meaning it could match or beat any potential buyer's offer.

But Kipp and Brown said that will be unlikely. Self-Help has worked with Preservation North Carolina before and has been in contact for weeks with the nonprofit organization, Brown said.

The building will likely work best for a single tenant, such as a charter school, insurance company or bank, he said. The renovation will be designed to fit whatever tenant is found.

"I spent the better part of the morning soliciting my friends and new friends in Rocky Mount to talk it up and find us a new tenant," Brown said. "It would make a very stately building for somebody that needed to present a substantial image to Rocky Mount."

The speculative purchase is similar to the Peoples Bank building, Kipp said. The purchase will keep the building's historic face and likely make it useful in the future, he said.

"The historic preservation in downtown Rocky Mount is what distinguishes Rocky Mount from anywhere else," Kipp said. "Once they find a tenant, they're going to renovate the building and renovate it in the way it deserves to be done."