thedailytimes.com : Your 24/7 news source

The Blount County Intergovernmental Committee has given an initial OK to selling the current Highway Department facility, located at 415 Louisville Road in Alcoa, to the developer of Hamilton Crossing for $3 million.
The committee on Tuesday voted to send the resolution to the full Blount County Commission at its Jan. 17 meeting. Proceeds from the sale will be used to build a new joint Highway Department and Blount County Schools Maintenance Facility, Highway Superintendent Bill Dunlap said during a telephone interview afterward.
“We’re going to move over next to the city of Alcoa’s new public works facility on Wright Road,” Dunlap said. “We’ve outgrown the current facility. I’m very excited.”
The 17-acre property where the Highway Department facility is located is prime commercial property, Dunlap said.
“Now, you can look around us and see what’s there,” he said. “It’s just too valuable a piece of property to sit there off the tax rolls.”
Technically, if the full 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. County Finance Director Dave Bennett confirmed that Dunlap was the prospective buyer after the meeting.
“That property was appraised at $1.6 million in 2006,” Bennett said. “It’s a win-win-win, all the way around,”
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.
Retail chains interested
Jay Dunlap, no relation to 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.
“Right after the end of the month, we’ll be signing contracts,” Bill Dunlap said. “They will sell that property to the Economic Development Board ... the developer is wanting to extend Hamilton Crossing. He has some pretty heavy plans for that 17 acres.”
When contacted Wednesday, Jay Dunlap said he has talked to a number of possible tenants — including some nationally known retail chains — that may be interested in locating at the site of the current Highway Department facility.
“At this point, it’s way too early to speculate on what store or stores might be interested in that property,” Jay Dunlap said. “I’m entirely focused on getting everything squared away with Dick’s Sporting Goods right now.”
For the past two-and-a-half 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).
Plans call for Jay Dunlap to provide “earnest money” to the county once the agreements are signed, Bill Dunlap said.
“There will be an earnest deposit, we’ve not settled on the that yet, so we can start site prep in X number of days,” he said. “Basically we’re getting $3 million for that property, which will be more than enough to put us and the school maintenance department in new facilities.”
The highway department is located in a metal Quonset hut built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s. Bordering the 129 Bypass, the highway department property can accommodate a minimum of 130,000 square feet of retail space. That kind of commercial development would result in about $750,000 in tax revenues to the county per year, Bill Dunlap said.