Tishomingo Mayor, James Tennyson, is excited to announce that the Tishomingo City Hall will soon be located in the former Cadence Bank Building. He said, “We will be moving from a 100-year old building to a 50 year-old building.

A drive-thru, a vault already in the building, and also the hopes of little maintenance to the building will be a plus for the town.” When Bancorpsouth was bought by Cadence Bank, the branch bank in Tishomingo was one of 30 smaller local banks closed.

Cadence is in the process of selling all the 30 bank buildings. They have restrictions on those sales. The buildings cannot be bought and used for any business that deals with finances. The buildings cannot be used for a bank, a loan office, a financial planner, an insurance broker, or even a check cashing facility. In other words, the building cannot house any business that will compete with any services Cadence might offer.

Once it was known that it could not be occupied by another bank, the Town of Tishomingo accepted a very generous offer well below the appraised value from Cadence to buy the building. The purchase will not cost taxpayers any money. The town sold the factory building at the south end of town several years ago. Some of that money was previously used to build a storage building for maintenance equipment near the fire station. This purchase will use some of those funds.

The remaining money will be on deposit to draw interest and be available for future capital needs. In addition, Cadence is going to leave several thousands of dollars worth of existing furniture and give the town access to any additional furniture it might need from the other branches it plans to sell.

The town plans to move City Hall into the Cadence building to better service the needs of the citizens. First, the building has a drive-through. The town applied for funds to add a drive-through in the current location, but discovered that is not possible due to the construction of the current building. The curved roof is supported in part by wide, large concrete foundation piers that cannot be changed.

In addition to the easily accessible drive-through, the Cadence building also has a secure night deposit that is available. One primary concern for the town over the years has been protection for over 100 years of current and historical town records. A fire or tornado could destroy all town artifacts because there is no fireproof storage available in the current location.

The Cadence building has a fireproof vault large enough to hold all the records safely in the event of a destructive situation. The board had investigated ways to protect those records earlier but due to the amount of records and the size of the large minute books, it would have been extremely expensive. In addition, the vault that was in use in the bank building as well as the vault in the original part of the building can become storm shelters within walking distance of anyone in town should they be needed during tornado season.

The current City Hall will not be sold. It is already actively being marketed to people interested in bringing a new business to town. The citizens will all benefit from additional services a new business will provide, and the town will also benefit from the rent or lease income provided by the space. The fact that the price was very good, the money was already available, the drive-through, the vault, and the additional rental property would be available means this property will be a great investment making it easier to serve the citizens of Tishomingo better.