RICH SQUARE – Wood Beasley III donated property to the Town of Rich Square on Oct. 20 worth about $170,000.

Beasley said the property once housed Beasley Oil offices. After Beasley moved out, it was converted to the Rich Square Dialysis Center, located on Jackson Street (NC 305/561) near the railroad crossing.

That also closed and the building has been vacant for many years.

Mayor Doris Risper said the town is excited to receive this very generous donation.

Town Finance Officer Francis Futrell said the town’s current plan is to turn the building into a town complex.

The current town hall in the middle of Rich Square is very old and has not been refurbished since the early 1970s.

Although the Rich Square Dialysis Center building has been vacant several years, Beasley said it is in fairly good shape.

During a brief walk-through of the interior, Town Commissioner Raymond Joyner said that the air conditioning unit on the roof of the building was stolen, causing some roof damage that caused interior leaks, but Beasley had the leaks repaired and the damage to interior walls shouldn’t require much funds to repair.

“We’re very thankful for this,” Risper said. “It won’t take much to fix.”

Futrell said it would “cost a fortune” to repair the current town hall,

The way this donation came about, Futrell said, was that “Mr. Beasley just walked in one day and asked if I wanted it. I said yes, but I can’t pay for it and he said he didn’t say anything about paying for it.”

The new building is about 3,000 square feet, said Joyner, and will give the town much more room than it now has.

During the walk-through they identified a huge room, once used for dialysis that would make a great commissioners’ meeting room.

Beasley and his wife, Laura, came to the public donation of the property.

Beasley said the building is wired like a hospital because of upgrades when it was a dialysis center.