SMITHFIELD - After four decades on the old Johnston County Training School campus, Johnston-Lee-Harnett Community Action is ready to upgrade to a better building.

The agency, which provides a preschool and other services for low-income families, plans to build a new office building in East Smithfield and demolish its longtime home, the former school's home economics building.

"It would cost more to renovate the building than it would to build a new one," said Marie Watson, executive director of Community Action.

Watson's group is applying for a federal loan to pay for the million-dollar building. "We're very close to hopefully finishing that process," she said.

If the loan is approved, a one-story, 10,000-square-foot building could start going up by late summer on what is now a gravel parking lot. Then the current building will be razed. Construction won't affect the gym or Head Start preschool buildings.

Community Action will soon be launching a fundraising campaign to speed the process of paying off the loan.

Watson can rattle off a laundry list of reasons why the current building is inadequate. For one, the old radiators and window air-conditioning units are an inefficient way to heat and cool the building, and it's often not a comfortable temperature, Watson said.

"It costs us a lot to be here," she said. "Hopefully, this will save us some money in the long run."

Also, the expanding agency long ago outgrew the building. Closets have been turned into offices, and in one instance, three employees share a single office, Watson said.

The building isn't handicapped accessible, since most offices are on the second floor and can be reached only by a steep, narrow staircase. Employees have to leave their desks and go to the first floor to meet clients who can't make it up the steps.

The makeshift offices and labyrinth-like halls make it hard for clients to find the services they need, Watson said. In the new building, all visitors will go through a front entrance on Massey Street and be directed to the correct office.

Also, Watson said the group would likely close its satellite office downtown and move those employees into the main building.

The project has already cleared one hurdle: getting the Town Council's approval to rezone the property from residential to office and institutional use. Decades ago, the town's planning department had wrongly labeled the lot as residential, and that had to be corrected before construction could begin.

A vote on the rezoning several weeks ago drew an unexpected crowd of neighbors concerned about effects on their property values. They worried the rezoning might change the character of the neighborhood.

But Watson said a nicer building on the Training School campus would improve the neighborhood. "The area will look better," she said.

In addition to the preschool program, Community Action makes homes more energy-efficient, renovates homes and helps low-income homeowners in other ways. It recently celebrated its 44th anniversary.