Columbus chamber now debt-free after burning mortgage - Debt was paid off through campaign that raised funds

It's a moment certainly every homeowner relishes -- paying off the mortgage and the monthly payment it represents.

But businesses find the same glee in ditching a debt on their building. And the Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce, which works to help businesses get started, grow into healthy ventures and expand in the market, took a moment last Wednesday to watch the bank note on its headquarters disappear -- literally.

Phil Tomlinson, current chair of the chamber, joined Dayton Preston, a chair from the 1960s, and several past leaders of the organization in burning pages of the mortgage loan in the fireplace of the historic Columbus Train Depot at 1200 6th Ave.

Just like that, the bank loan of just more than $2 million, taken out in 2001, went up in flames. It was paid off quickly through a fundraising campaign chaired by W.T. "Bill" Heard Jr. No membership dues were used, said Mike Gaymon, chamber president and chief executive officer.

"To have gotten the support to pay off the mortgage on this building without using any membership dues... I guess it's been done somewhere in the United States, I'm just not familiar with it," he said.

The 161-year-old chamber is now completely debt free, Gaymon said. The organization has 1,850 business members and a staff of 25. Its annual budget is $3.1 million.

The 23,000-square-foot Columbus Train Depot was built in 1901 as a transportation hub for the city. Although freight trains still use a rail yard behind it, passengers stopped using the structure about 35 years ago.

The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Its former owner, credit-card processor Total System Services Inc. (brand name TSYS), renovated it in the late 1980s and used it as a corporate headquarters until 1999, when it moved into a new 54-acre campus overlooking the Chattahoochee River.

Tomlinson is now chairman and CEO of TSYS. He mentioned at Wednesday's mortgage burning how people would venture into the depot's lobby when TSYS was there and talk about seeing their loved ones head off to war. It was often the last time they would see them alive.

"So forever those people's lives to their loved ones are linked to this building," Gaymon said.

The depot is in good shape, other than major repairs that need to be done to an internal gutter system, Gaymon said.