Bartholomew County Commissioners and Columbus Regional Hospital are putting a deal together that will give the county health department’s nursing division a permanent home. The nursing department had been in the State Street annex building which has now been demolished and plans to build a new annex discarded.

The county has been renting space for the department in a former doctor’s office on Fox Pointe Drive. But under the new deal, Columbus Regional Hospital has made an offer to the owner to buy the building. If the deal goes through, the county hospital would then continue to rent the building to the health department.

County Commissioners President Rick Flohr says that the county would eventually buy the property from the county hospital. The county could even consider swapping the empty former annex property on State Street for the building, Flohr said.

County Councilwoman Laura DeDomenic, a Realtor, estimated that the two properties seemed to be roughly equivalent in value.

There are also two other tenants in the building with the nursing department whose leases would be unaffected, Flohr said.