ANDERSON COUNTY — If it were up to Anderson County Assessor Mike Freeman, he would move his desk and those of his 32 other employees to the old Kroger store on East River Street today.

“If you saw my office, you would understand,” Freeman said. “We are on top of each other, and we are loaded down with files. We are ready to move now.”

That was his response to the fact that crews have moved into the old grocery store in Anderson and ripped out its guts, leaving a shell for another company to come in and refurbish. Freeman said his employees are housed in about 4,000 square feet of space.

In the old grocery store, they will easily double the amount of room in which the employees set up shop, Freeman said.

The old store will be the Anderson County Courthouse Annex. It will house the offices of the county auditor, assessor, treasurer, register of deeds, building and codes, building maintenance and the county mailroom.

And within the year, Freeman likely will have his wish, if the project continues as scheduled.

So far, the project is on schedule and under budget.

Demolition began in June and should be finished next week, said Anderson County Director of Central Services Robert Carroll. Bids for the renovations to the building went out on Sunday and are expected to back within the month.

Construction should start by Sept. 2 and finish around May 2009, Carroll said.

Staff estimated the costs at $110,000 for the demolition, but it has come in at $69,000, Carroll said.

In 2006, with a 6-1 vote, the Anderson County Council approved a $7.3 million bond for the expansion of the county offices. Amid some criticism early on, the old store was purchased for $1.3 million.

With the purchase completed, $6 million is left for the renovations, Carroll said. The construction should not cost that much, however, according to officials.

“We’ll know for sure in 30 days when those bids come back in,” Carroll said. “But we don’t think it will go over $4.5 million to $5 million.”

And Anderson County Administrator Joey Preston said any of the money left from that $7.3 million bond, once the annex is complete, will be used for upgrading the security at the Anderson County Courthouse and upfitting the office spaces there once some staff members are moved into the Courthouse Annex.

Once, the construction bids are in, Carroll and his staff will review them and decide which company will receive the contract, he said. That decision is expected to be made by Aug. 5.

For passing motorists, the first visible signs of work at the long-abandoned grocery store could be detected a couple of weeks ago as piles of old insulation and other debris were piled up outside the front of the 47,000-square-foot building.

Now there is a gaping hole in the front of the cement structure where the store’s glass-framed entrance once stood.

That was removed to make way for the new entrance to the building, that will include secure access, the county’s building, project engineer Bill Lloyd said.

Roughly 120 to 125 county employees will be housed in the annex, and there will be about 300 parking spaces around the building as well as loading docks in the back for the mail deliveries — some of the biggest selling points for the project for county officials.

One of those county officials, Anderson County Auditor Jacky Hunter, commented on the benefit the parking for the public at the East River Street location. When the project was first proposed, he questioned the building’s purchase price.

“I was basically questioning the amount of money spent on it,” Hunter said. “But the purchase has been made now. There will parking closer to the building, which is one of the advantages as far the public is concerned.”