Tyler Perry offers to buy a new FDA lab that will be built close to his studios to stop pollution. -

Tyler Perry doesn’t just want to see more Black people on TV and in movies. He also wants to see less pollution in Black neighborhoods, and he’s willing to pay a few million dollars for a federal building to show it.

The media mogul says he is thinking about buying the former U.S. military training center next to Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta. It is called the Forces Command building. The building is supposed to become an FDA lab, but Saporta Report, an ATL news blog, says that TP has seen the proposed plan and is very worried about possible fumes.

The building was reportedly approved to be sold to Easterly Government Properties in 2019 for $17M — and the current plan is to lease to the FDA, which would have it up and running by 2025.

Tyler already offered to buy it for the same $17 mil, but the feds sold it to Easterly, instead.

He’s not giving up that easily, because Tyler says he’s willing to pay a premium for the property now, if that’s what it takes to block the lab. He told Saporta, “To allow someone to put a laboratory in the heart of this development with smokestacks is not okay with me. They would not do it in Buckhead, so why would they do it here? It feels like environmental racism.”

An FDA official says Tyler’s description of the lab’s “smokestacks” is not accurate, and the facility’s actually designed to clean all emissions. The building sits right next to land where Tyler’s expanding his studio.

Sounds like it won’t be the easiest deal to close, but TP isn’t going down without a fight.

Tyler Perry offers to buy a new FDA lab that will be built close to his studios to stop pollution.

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