Brick by brick Meridian cotton warehouse dismantled Buildings to be repurposed; materials reused all over Mississippi

Devna Bose / The Meridian Star

The old cotton press warehouse structure stretches along a portion of Front Street in downtown Meridian. Part of the building is being dismantled and the rest will be saved and repurposed. Material from the building is being reused in buildings across the street and around Mississippi.

Driving along Front Street in Meridian, one building is hard to miss with its mountains of stacked bricks and some of its walls vanishing away.

For the past three years, crews working for building owner Donnie Massey have been dismantling parts of the building and salvaging two other buildings across the street.

The long structure along the railroad tracks was built in 1888 and used as a cotton press warehouse until the late 1960s. More recently, it was used as a paper warehouse and owned by Cotton Press Warehouse, before Massey bought it in 2006. Work on the building began in 2015.

“We started taking down portions of it, and we’re planning on renovating the building at some point,” Massey said. “We have no clue right now when it’s going to be done. We’re trying to get these buildings back up and going. Hopefully, it’ll be done sometime in the near future.”

Brick by brick Meridian cotton warehouse dismantled Buildings to be repurposed; materials reused all over Mississippi

Dena Bose / The Meridian Star

The old cotton press warehouse is located near the railroad tracks on Front Street in Meridian.

Much of the building’s scraps are being repurposed, including bricks, metal and wood.

“The pine, it’s being shipped and flooring is being made out of it, and its bricks are being used in buildings all over Mississippi,” Massey said.

Regardless of the building’s final shape, Massey wants to retain some of the personality of the original structure, matching downtown Meridian’s architecture.

“We want to leave the ambiance of the old building,” Massey said.

A native of East Mississippi, Massey’s reasoning for his decision is nostalgia.

“Part of it is, you see these all over the South where they salvage these buildings. One of the main reasons we tore down what we did tear down was to create parking. At the same time, we didn’t want to lose what the inside of the building looked like and the exterior of it,” he said. “The other part is my own heart.”

Brick by brick Meridian cotton warehouse dismantled Buildings to be repurposed; materials reused all over Mississippi

Devna Bose / The Meridian Star

Construction began on the old Front Street warehouse in 2015, but there is a still a considerable amount to be done. 

Massey is not sure what the future use of the structure will be.

“We’re still trying to figure out exactly what we’re going to do with it,” he said. “I mean, this building is 200,000 square feet. This is not a small feat by any means.”

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