This is a printer friendly version of an article from www.thedailytimes.com
To print this article open the file menu and choose Print.
Article published Jan 16, 2008 Highway facility sale on agenda
By Joel Davis of The Daily Times Staff
The Blount County Commission will decide Thursday whether to approve selling the Highway Department facility, located at 415 Louisville Road in Alcoa, to the developer of Hamilton Crossing for $3 million. Proceeds from the sale would be used to build a new joint Highway Department and Blount County Schools Maintenance Facility on Wright Road near the city of Alcoa’s new public works facility. If the County Commission approves the deal, the property will be transferred to the Economic Development Board, which will then sell the property to Knoxville-based Jay Dunlap. The County Commission approved the concept of the sale back in 2006. The city of Alcoa will lease property for the new facility to the county. Jay Dunlap, no relation to Blount County Highway Superintendent Bill Dunlap, developed Hamilton Crossing at the intersection of Alcoa Highway and Louisville Road and is working with Merit Construction to build the new Dick’s Sporting Goods store adjacent to the PetSmart store that recently opened in Hamilton Crossing Plaza. For the past 21⁄2 years, Jay Dunlap has developed the 101,000-square-foot “phase one” of Hamilton Crossing Plaza, which officially opened in September and houses Circuit City, Ross Dress for Less, Old Navy, Shoe Carnival, Rue21, Fusion Tanning, PetSmart and other retail stores. There is an 80,000-square-foot “phase two” planned for Hamilton Crossing that includes a national bookstore chain, but Dunlap would not disclose the name of the bookstore or a time frame for phase two. Hamilton Crossing Plaza is located behind the Chili’s restaurant on Hamilton Crossing Drive (which runs beside the Cracker Barrel restaurant across from the Alcoa Wal-Mart). In other business, the County Commission will also decide whether to approve proposed new regulations that would prohibit most construction within 60 feet of stream banks. Currently, the county only mandates a 25-foot stream buffer zone during construction. The proposed regulation would mandate a 30-foot zone that would include trees and native vegetation and an additional 30-foot zone that consists of mowed grass. The resolution is a requirement of the Clean Water Act as part of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit program.