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The Blount County Commission has moved a step closer to purchasing the Ceramaspeed property on MacArthur Road for $2.7 million.

During a work session Thursday, the County Commission voted to consider the purchase during its Nov. 20 meeting. It was a far-from-unanimous voice vote -- there were several audible votes against moving the item for consideration -- but Commission Vice Chairman Gary Farmer ruled that it passed.

Earlier in the day, the County Budget Committee voted to recommend the purchase if the property is appraised at least at the value of the purchase.

County Mayor Jerry Cunningham recently presented commissioners with the idea of buying the building for use as a new Highway Department headquarters and the consolidation of other county departments -- instead of building a new facility on land leased from Alcoa as originally planned.

The Ceramaspeed plant, which currently employs about 40 people, will shut down local operations at the end of the year. The building, comprising 140,260 square feet on slightly more than 23 acres, was built in the 1960s and was renovated in the 1990s.

Cunningham said he would also recommend moving the County Codes, Records, Stormwater, Environmental Health, and Planning departments to the property and establishing satellite offices for the County Clerk and Register of Deeds and selling the old Hubbard School property as surplus.

Polar reactions

Opinions varied among the commissioners on the merits of the idea.

"It's like looking at a Cadillac," Commissioner Wendy Pitts Reeves said. "It's very exciting. What's confusing me is we originally agreed on a $3 million project, but it looks like we're up way past that. We're that far over budget on a project, and we haven't even poured the first piece of concrete yet.

"... We can't find $1 million to fix a road that is killing people, but we can spend $800,000 and up over what we planned for a new highway department," she said, referring to Morganton Road. "I think we should be very, very careful of this and exercise caution."

"I will have a hard time voting for this because I don't think anybody really understands how tough things will get over the next six months to a year," Commissioner Mike Walker said. "Creative financing scares me, knowing the state of the economy. ... It's going to get hard on a lot of people real fast. Someway, somewhere, the county is going to have to tighten the purse strings."

"We need to look at this before we make a decision in haste," Commissioner Joe McCulley said. "That's what we've done in the past."

There was a chorus of support, too.

"This building is just a great, great opportunity for Blount County," Commissioner Brad Harrison said.

"It's an excellent idea and it's a great place to look at the future of Blount County," Commissioner Kenneth Melton said. "I have never liked that idea of going to Alcoa anyway."

"Deals like this may not come along very often," Commissioner Ron French said. "We need to get behind it."

"I don't see how we can not buy this piece of property," Blount County Commissioner Gerald Kirby said.

Paying for it

If the purchase is approved, a portion of the $2.7 million will come out of the remainder of the $3 million the county received from Hamilton Crossing developer Jay Dunlap for the old Highway Department facility.

According to Bennett, the county will use $2 million from the sale and obtain the remaining $700,000 from the general debt service fund as an internal loan. The amount would be paid back in next year's budget through the use of fund balance.

The county has already spent a portion of the $3 million on site preparation and design for a proposed 25,000-square-foot building off Wright Road that is home to the city of Alcoa's new Service Center.

There were also plans to build a 15,000-square-foot Blount County Schools maintenance facility on the 14-acre site, which would be leased from Alcoa through a 50-year renewable lease. However, Dunlap said bids came in about $1.3 million over (the estimated $1.8 million) budget because of increasing construction costs.

At current costs, Dunlap said the size of the new facility would have to be reduced to meet the budget.

At the Budget Committee meeting earlier in the evening, Commission Chairman Steve Samples asked where Dunlap had spent $800,000 on the Alcoa property.

"We did the (construction) drawings and I had to recoup what I put into it ... for the site prep we did," Dunlap said.

"If we choose this, there is no way we can recoup that," Commissioner Robert Proffitt said.

Commissioner Kenneth Melton asked why the Highway Department charged for the site work. "That's something we can't get out of," Dunlap said. "It's state law."

Linda King of Citizens for Blount County's Future, who spoke at the Budget Committee, said she didn't oppose the idea but thought that the county should seek to recoup some of the investment in the Wright Road site from the city of Alcoa.

"I'm not saying I'm against buying the Ceramaspeed property at all ... I would like to ask for better forward planning of financial matters," King said.

Cunningham said that he has been talking with Alcoa about receiving some reimbursement if the city develops or sells the site. "That discussion has been opened," he said.

The old Highway Department headquarters was demolished Wednesday. The Blount County Highway Department is temporarily based in the old Alcoa municipal building at the corner of Hall Road and Bessemer Street.

Planning Commission appointments

The commission will also consider two new appointments to the Planning Commission at its Nov. 20 meeting. Cunningham has submitted two names, professional engineer Lamar Dunn and Clifford Walker, to replace current Planning Commission Chairman Jim Scully and Planning Commissioner Rick Brownlie.

At the beginning of the meeting, King said the commission needs to look closely at any potential appointees.

"Really research the appointments to the Planning Commission to make sure we don't have builders or developers that are asked to be members ... because that would be a conflict of interest," she said.